The Fall of Saint Jimmy
by medicgirl
Summary: Sometimes it's not enough just to be the boy wonder oncologist... HW friendship, HurtComfort Finally complete!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Totally not mine. Would give anything if they were, but it's not to be...

Author's note: I shall tip my slightly worn paramedic cap to ScoobyWannabe for the inspiration. Please review! Pretty please?

James Wilson barely looked up from his files as he heard the door pop open and the scrape of his best friend's cane as he entered. He wasn't in the mood for this today. Never taking his eyes off the folder, he said, "I'm not hungry, I'm not buying you lunch, and I don't want to do a consult on your breast implant patient!"

House was a little shocked at the forcefulness in Wilson's voice. He didn't think he had done anything wrong this time. Hell, he had just gotten back from the conference on pandemics three days ago. Come to think of it, Wilson had been acting strange ever since. What was wrong with him? "Didn't come to make you buy me lunch. Brought you some though." He tossed a paper-wrapped turkey sandwich with mayo on rye on the overcrowded desk and turned to walk out.

A wave of guilt hit Wilson. There was no reason to take his frustrations out on House, although the older man often took his out on him. He sighed. He was the good guy though, always wore the white hat. Saint Jimmy, House had called him mockingly a few times. "House, wait." The older man froze in the door, and turned around. "Come on back. I'm sorry."

House considered it, then made his way to the empty chair. "Usually when you're pissed, I know what I've done, but this time I'm totally clueless," he admitted.

Wilson shook his head. "You haven't done anything," he said, then felt the need to amend that. "That I know of anyway." He knew his friend would laugh at what he was feeling, but also that since he had started, House would never let him back down. If House wasn't to blame for his bad mood, he wouldn't rest until he knew what was. "I'm just bored."

House looked at Wilson, sure he had heard him wrong. "Bored? What's that mean? The little bald kiddies just not as entertaining as they used to be?"

Wilson bit back an angry growl, knowing he wouldn't ordinarily react that way. It was just the stuff rattling away in his mind that made him feel like this. "No, they're not. Nothing here is. Not my job, not the people, not even your job. I'm bored with this place, but moreover I'm bored with me!"

Confused, House looked at him. "Maybe you should start at the beginning."

Ten minutes later, Wilson had finished giving House the recap of the case he had covered for him in his absence. "Here was this old woman, talking about all this stuff she did, and I just want to do something. I get up in the morning, come here, tell half a dozen people a day that they won't see their next birthday, either go home and watch TV or go home with you get drunk and watch TV, get up, do it all again. I'm thirty-eight years old, and here was this woman about to turn sixty telling me about how she snorted cocaine off a homosexual man's stomach!"

House looked at him for a second. "You want to snort cocaine off a gay guy's stomach?"

"Maybe!" Wilson dropped his head. "I knew you wouldn't understand."

"Then make me understand."

You'll laugh."

"Not out loud."

Wilson smiled. He did need to talk. And maybe their friendship needed this. He held too much back lately. "I'm tired of being me. I'm tired of being the Boy Wonder oncologist who has a smile for everybody and has to do the right thing and has to keep the peace and behave. I'm tired of my hair always being perfectly done and my clothes being ironed and having to smile at everyone when I just want to slap them. I want to have an adventure, a story to tell in five years, something that doesn't involve tumors and radiation. I'm tired of having to live up to everyone's expectations. I'm tired of being the good guy. I don't want to be Saint Jimmy anymore!" He practically shouted the last sentence, winced, and quieted a little. "I don't want to be me right now."

"Who do you want to be?"

Wilson thought for a moment. "You."

House sat silently for a moment, then stood up. "How long 'til you're ready to go?"

He looked at the pile of papers around him. "At least an hour, why?"

"Give me your keys. And don't move from here until I get back."

Wilson felt a quiver in his stomach, but ignored it. "Sure, why not?" He tossed House the keys. What did he have to lose?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He strode into Cuddy's office, and she braced herself for the hurricane. Whenever he seemed this sure of something, it couldn't be good. "What is it, House?"

"Wilson and I need a week off. We'll be back next Monday."

She smiled sweetly. "Sure. Why didn't you say so? Not a chance in Hell. Have a nice day."

She glanced back at the computer screen, trying to pretend that she thought it was over. Of course, she knew it wasn't. House never let anything go this easily. Sure enough, he plopped into the empty chair facing her. His demeanor was the same as always, but his voice surprised her. "I'm serious. Wilson needs a vacation. He's about to completely burn out."

"And you, being so close to the edge yourself, felt the need to drag him back from the abyss?"

House nodded. "He's in trouble. I can help him. You complain that I'm not the kind of friend he deserves, and now I'm trying and you won't let me!"

"What's in this for you, House?" she asked bluntly, giving up hope of getting out of this easily or without a fight.

House swallowed. "I've screwed up. A lot. He's always been there to help me. Now he's facing a midlife crisis, and there is actually something I can do to help him. Usually when he's in trouble, I just make it worse-"

Cuddy straightened slightly. "Therein lies the problem. When you help, things get worse. Like when you tried to 'help' the Vogler situation with the little speech."

House winced, and would have given her the point had it not actually hurt that he had gotten Wilson fired, however indirectly, by failing to swallow his pride. "This is different…"

Cuddy sighed. She knew she wasn't going to win, so she decided to get what she could out of him. "What's it worth to you?"

He quickly hid his grin, and tried to look shocked. "I try to do a good deed, and I have to pay for it?" Off her look, he shrugged. "That's not the question, is it? What's it going to cost me?"

"Four hours extra clinic duty a week for a year."

House frowned. "Two hours for three months."

"Four for six months, or Wilson has his midlife crisis in his office."

"That's pretty low, even for you. Threatening Wilson to keep me in line? You would really hurt him just to punish me?"

"First off, I don't really believe Wilson is in any danger. Second, it's the only thing that works! Last chance!"

House grumbled, then nodded. "Yeah, okay. You're going to Hell, you know that?"

She smiled. "Yeah, well, sometimes I think it would have to be an upgrade."

He limped out of her office. He had a lot of work to do.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Not mine. Neither the characters or the songs narrating the road trip. In fact, I don't own anything besides a computer, an iPod, and an 8-year-old Honda.

Note: This is not intended to be slash or anything other than strong friendship.

Wilson sighed for perhaps the twentieth time in the last half hour. Where the hell was House? He was getting tired of waiting. If House hadn't taken his keys, he'd already be gone. There was always House's motorcycle, but he was bored, not suicidal. Resigned, he simply sat at his desk, bouncing his friend's lacrosse ball against the door. And sighed again.

Finally, when he thought he was almost ready to walk home, he heard the click of House's cane on the tile floor down the hall. He quickly gathered up his things, put on his coat, and put the ball in his desk drawer. Maybe he could hold it for ransom or something. At least the childish joke could be a little fun. Something to bring him out of this funk. He met House at the office door. "Finally!" he exclaimed. "What took you so long?"

They started walking down the hall to the elevator. "You're a hard guy to pack for. Why do you have no casual clothes? Even the two pair of jeans you do own have permanent creases in them! I had to go shopping."

"Huh?" asked Wilson. "Pack? What's wrong with neat clothing? Why did you have to go shopping?" He paused to try to process what was on his friend's mind. "Are we going somewhere?"

House didn't answer, much to Wilson's irritation. They approached Wilson's parking spot, and he saw not his Volvo but House's 'Vette. "Where's my car? And you never answered any of the other stuff I asked."

House shrugged. "So why would I answer this one?" Wilson shot daggers at him with his eyes, and House finally gave in. "Your car is at my place. It'll be safe there, and if you're gonna take a road trip you don't do it in a Volvo. If you have an option, you do it in something like this. And I had to go shopping because you don't want to be you for a while, and though I don't mind sharing my t-shirts with you, my jeans would be miles too long on you." He risked poking his friend in the gut with his cane, even though he was in a bad mood. He couldn't resist taking just one shot. "Not to mention just a smidge too tight."

Wilson took a second to process all this. "We can't just go on a road trip. We have to work. And you're not that much taller than me." He couldn't deny the other statement, so he simply said, "And we all can't live on just beer and Vicodon."

"Get in," House stated. "Doctor's orders." Wilson still hesitated. "Dr. Cuddy's orders," his friend emphasized. "Come on, we can all tell something is bothering you. I told her I'd try to snap you out of it. We're off until Monday."

Wilson finally managed a smile, and got in. What was the worst that could happen? Maybe it would be the adventure he was craving. Fastening his seatbelt, he asked, "Where are we going?"

House didn't reply, he just plugged an iPod into the stereo. Instead of his usual music, an upbeat country song called "Where the Blacktop Ends" came blasting out. What was this? House hated country music, and teased Wilson mercilessly because it was his favorite. A sense of peace fell over him. House was actually inconveniencing himself to take care of his stressed out friend. Who would ever believe that?

He was jolted out of the parallel universe where House was kind and caring when he looked at the iPod. What the hell? House's iPod wasn't green! "Where did this come from?" he asked.

"I know you like country music, and I didn't want all that crap on mine. Afraid all that sap will fry its circuits. So I swapped with Chase."

That one halted him for a second. "Why would Chase switch with you? You two aren't that close, and he doesn't particularly like me. Unless…He doesn't know he swapped, does he?"

House shrugged, just then his cell phone rang. Wilson handed it to him. Taking the phone, House squinted at the caller ID and smirked. "He does now."

Wilson laughed out loud for the first time in days.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

By the time it got dark, they were over a hundred miles southeast of Princeton. At the New Jersey line, House stopped to get a case of beer and proceeded to get Wilson drunk. After three, he was starting to relax. After four, he realized he still didn't know where they were going. "So, when are you going to tell me where we're going?" he asked.

House turned the stereo down. "Evansville, Indiana."

Wilson looked at him like he had lost his mind. "What's in Evansville, Indiana?"

"Does it matter?"

"Do we have a plan?"

"Nope. Well, actually, I want to detour through southern Kentucky, check up on a patient, but then I thought we might check out the riverboat casino, get smashed, and get half a dozen hookers. You said you wanted some fun."

Wilson thought about it for a second, then caught the first part again. "Wait, you want to go through Kentucky to check on a patient? You don't even check on patients when they're in your zip code!"

"Yeah, but this patient could provide us with some entertainment."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was nearly midnight when House finally admitted that they were lost. The thick forest closed in around them, and it looked like a scene from any of a hundred horror movies. Wilson wasn't completely drunk, but he had enough to pretty much not give a shit. He simply let his head roll back and enjoy the scenery. The top was still down, and while it was cold, he was enjoying the feel of the chilled air on his skin. It was nice just to feel something. He had thought he was getting numb, but just being away from New Jersey was enough to almost make him feel alive again. "So you don't know how to get back to civilization?"

Mistaking Wilson's flat tone for irritation, he said, "Well, this road has to go somewhere, and if we keep following the river-"

"Pull over," Wilson said.

House hesitated. Was he really pissed off now? No matter how irritable he got, it wasn't going to get them back in the real world. "Look, I'm trying. I've never been here before either-"

Wilson rolled his eyes. "I'm not bitching. I have an idea. Just pull over." House finally obliged him, pulling off the road, down a slight embankment by the river.

Wilson got out, and House followed him. "Okay, what now?"

The younger doctor shrugged, looking at the river. "You cleaned out your trunk lately?"

"No," said House. "Why?" Wilson went to the back of the car, popped the trunk, and pulled out two sleeping bags. "What the hell are those doing in there?"

Wilson smiled. Remember the last road trip we went on?"

A ghost of a smile crept onto House's rough features. "The one where we got kicked out of the hotel?"

Nodding, Wilson threw one sleeping bag to him. "I put these in here when we got back. For the next time the plan didn't exactly happen the way it was planned."

House found a rock and sat down. "So you want to camp out? In the middle of nowhere? In April??"

Wilson smiled. "Sure! It's something to do."

"It's cold," House argued, without any real force. If it was what Jimmy wanted, he would get it. No matter how much the cold hurt his leg. He owed the troubled young man that much, and a lot more. "Okay. Camping it is. You see any wood laying around here?"

Looking like an eight-year-old camping out with his daddy, Wilson scrambled around gathering firewood as House arranged rocks in a circle like they always did in the movies. He had no idea why they did that, but if Wilson wanted to live the non-creepy version of Deliverance, he would do his part.

Camp was set up, and House was getting ready to go to sleep, when Wilson suddenly got up. "Come on!" he said to House urgently with mischief lighting up his brown eyes. By the time House was to his side, Wilson had stripped down to his boxers and was headed toward the water.

"Uh, Wilson, I know I promised you an adventure, but I wasn't planning on giving up my virtue…"

Shooting a withering look over his shoulder at his friend, he walked to the edge of the river. "I'm not going to take advantage of you. I'm going swimming!"

"Swimming?! Now?!"

"Sure," said Wilson, wading out to his knees carefully feeling for rocks and drop-offs. "Why not?"

"Well, let's see…" House replied, his voice clearly saying that he though Wilson had lost his mind. "The water can't be above forty degrees, it could be contaminated with who knows what, it's the middle of the night, you could get hurt-" House wasn't used to this. Wilson wanted to be him, and he was doing a damn good job. He wasn't supposed to have to talk the otherwise sane, rational oncologist out of doing insane things. If he had to be that sensible one, well, that was like having a blind guide dog. "This is crazy!"

"That's the point!" said Wilson. "C'mon, you wuss! The water's great!"

House shook his head. "The water's freezing. For once, I have to be the voice of sanity. Come back out, dry off, and we'll get a fire built before you get hypothermic!"

"You should try-" Wilson froze, as if suddenly realizing that House wasn't the man he was seven years ago. "Geez, I'm sorry. Can you even swim?"

"I don't know," he replied honestly. "I haven't tried. And as cold as the water is, it would HURT LIKE HELL! Now, come on out before you slice your foot open or something!"

Wilson looked like he was going to comply, then a totally different look crossed his face and he cried out in a combination of fear and pain and ran to the bank. House limped as quickly as he could to his side as they tried to remove the wriggling black snake from where it had clamped it's jaws into Wilson's left calf. "Oh, shit!" House was muttering under his breath. Wilson was simply whimpering like a hurt puppy and shaking like a leaf from either fear, cold, or pain from the large chunk they were about to pull loose from his leg.

Finally, they managed to pull the creature loose, and House held it up in the headlights. "Black snake. Not poison." House cracked it like a whip, breaking its spine, then tossed it aside. Wilson had sat down heavily, and was trying to examine the four puncture wounds that were bleeding slightly. The older doctor sat beside him to give a second opinion. "Still need to get it checked out. When was your last tetnus shot?"

Wilson shrugged. "God only knows."

House braced himself on the nearest tree and gave him a hand to get up. "Come on. Let's get out of here. We'll get you a tetnus shot and we'll get a hotel. We can camp out tomorrow night, okay?" He pulled the man to his feet, and they limped together toward the car. Just then, they heard a very distinctive sound of a shotgun locking into place.

Both doctors stopped dead in their tracks as a mountain of a man aimed a 12-guage at them. "Who the hell are you, and what are you doing on my land?" Wilson and House stared at each other, expressions clearly saying, "Oh god, we're going to die!"


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: They're not mine. Except for the farmer, anyway.

A/N: I've never been close enough to a Corvette in real life to know the details. Maybe if I treated a mob guy...

"I'm gonna ask you one more time!" The man demanded. "Who the hell are you and why are you on my land at one in the morning?" He slowly stepped toward them, the shotgun never wavering. And why isn't he dressed? My wife is calling the cops right now!"

Wilson still whimpered in pain/fear, so House tried to force his voice to be stronger than it was. "Sir, I'm sorry. We didn't know anyone owned this. We were lost, and just decided to camp out here. But I'm a doctor, and my friend is hurt, so I need you to put the gun away and tell me how to get to the nearest hospital."

"What happened to him?" the man asked cautiously, as if not believing him.

"I was bit by a snake," Wilson said, trying to stand. He struggled wobbly to his feet.

"A copperhead," said House. "He's going to die. We have to go! How do we get out of here?" The man was hesitating still, so House demanded, "Don't let my friend die because we got lost in the wrong place! Help me get him to the car!"

The man finally scrambled over to them, dropping the shotgun, as Wilson realized he was supposed to seem worse off than he was, and pretended to stagger. Big, meaty hands closed all the way around Wilson's much smaller bicep and hoisted him roughly over his shoulder. He cried out in alarm, and looked at House. The lumberjack-sized landowner carried Wilson to the passenger side of the Corvette and sat him down carefully in the seat without even opening the door. House limped quickly as he could behind them and hopped into the drivers seat. "Thanks a lot, big guy," he said. "Tell me how to get back on the paved road, and you'll be done with us."

"Just get back on the road, and stay right. You can call for an ambulance when you get to town. It's about twenty miles. Will he be okay 'til then?"

"Yeah," said House. "I'll take care of him. Sorry we disturbed you!" He put the car in gear and kicked up a cloud of dust as they floored it away from the river bank and the territorial hillbilly.

Wilson was laughing his head off as they drove way too fast down the dirt road, then he began to shiver. It only took him a split second to realize the reason. "House! We left my clothes!" He was still wet, placing a gauze pad and some tape over his wounded leg to slow the bleeding.

House nodded. "And the sleeping bags."

"What are we going to do?"

"We're going to get the Hell out of Dodge, unless you want to go back and explain to the Jeff Foxworthy reject back there that you are very attached to your clothes and are willing to risk your life to get them back."

Wilson shook his head, and curled himself into a ball, trying to cover as much of himself as possible to keep from freezing. Once they got far enough from the farmer, House pulled over and tried to put the top up. After pulling for a few minutes, he called to Wilson. "Come help me. This is stuck."

He got out, still in only his boxers, and together they pulled and tugged on the convertible top without success. Finally, a wry grin on his face, Wilson pointed out the obvious. "It's stuck."

House looked at his friend, taking in the barely suppressed shivers, the bluish tinge his lips were taking on in the dim light, and took his jacket off. "Here, out this on. I'll dig you out some clothes."

Wilson eagerly accepted the black leather coat and wrapped it around his bare torso, absorbing some of its warmth, while House dug a suitcase out of the trunk. In a moment, he tossed the hypothermic doctor a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He glanced back at Wilson to determine if he had gotten his underwear wet, and got him a clean pair of them too. The younger man wasted no time getting dressed, not even bothering to take the price tag off the Levis before buttoning them up and pulling a grey faded Pink Floyd shirt over his head.

House couldn't suppress the true smile growing on his lips. The t-shirt was slightly tight on Wilson; it had been bought for his own skin-and-bones frame. The jeans had been designed to look worn, faded down the legs with holes in the knees. His friend had lost weight since House had known his jeans size. They were way too big. "My God, Jimmy! You look like you're about 25! If I wear your clothes, does that mean if I wear your clothes, I'll look 70?"

Wilson laughed, still cold, but feeling better than he had in a long time. He could tell this story later, but no one would believe him. House clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, lets go. Your leg still bleeding?"

He shook his head. "I think it stopped."

"Well, you still need a tetnus shot. God only knows what was in the water."

"Besides the snake?" They got back into the car, and House turned the heat on even though the top was still open. "Where did you come up with the copperhead thing?"

House shrugged. "Man like that, been out here all his life, one thing he has to learn is respect for poisonous snakes."

Wilson laid his head back against the back of the seat, relaxed and happy. Then he remembered where they were headed. Eyes closed, he asked pitifully. "Do you really think I need a tetnus shot?"

"You know you do. You're the doctor, I just play one on TV."

Wilson pouted. "But Daddy, I don't want a shot!"

"Keep your mouth shut and I'll do it. Keep whining and I'll find the newest nurse with the shakiest hands I can find. And give her the biggest needle I can find."

Rolling his eyes, Wilson said, "You really think I'm gonna let you jab me with a needle? You'd enjoy that way too much."

House tried to look hurt. "A tetnus shot is one of the most painful injections we give. You really think I would enjoy doing that to you?"

"Yes."

He shrugged. "You're right. Cynical, but probably right."


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Do I pick on Kentuckians too much? We're not all either insane or incompetent, we just can't keep the more ignorant of us quiet.

House actually stopped and asked for directions when they got back into the tiny town. The teenage clerk at the only 24-hour gas station told him to get back on the main drag and follow the signs, that it was only a few miles down the road. Wilson was slightly alarmed at the thought of going to a hospital in such a tiny town in eastern Kentucky; it sounded like a bad horror movie waiting to happen. But House scoffed. They were just going to get a tetnus shot and move on. How bad could it be?

They walked up to the small one-story building apprehensively. "Have you ever seen a one-story hospital?" Wilson asked.

"Not in the continental US," House replied.

They went inside and to the registration desk. A very young woman smiled shyly and handed Wilson a paper to fill out. "Just have a seat and we'll get to you soon."

Wilson was barely limping by now, as he sat down to fill out the paper. House sat beside him, pulling a chair around to prop up his leg. The wait seemed to take forever, and House was getting restless. Too sore to get up and pace, he tapped his cane on the floor in an erratic rhythm. Before long, he was humming along and it took Wilson a few minutes to recognize the song. It was another country song from Chase's iPod, one called "If You're Going Through Hell" by a singer named Rodney Adkins. It was a funny song and somehow the humor trumped the inspiration, and it struck a cord in House. "If you're going through Hell, keep on going…You might get out before the devil even knows you're there." Great thought.

While he liked the song, the cane-tapping was starting to get irritating. He put up with it as long as he could, then grabbed the cane away from House. The older man looked up at him innocently. "What was that for?"

"You know damn good and well what that was for! These people are going to have to stick needles in me, and it would not be a good idea for you to start annoying them before absolutely necessary!" House shrugged noncommittally, and Wilson rubbed the back of his neck. Obviously at a stalemate, House muttered barely audibly, as if trying to remember his line.

"I regret that I have but one life to give-no, that's not it. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your-not that one either…Oh, yeah! Got it now!" he looked up at Wilson, gave the most faked contrite expression he could manage. "I'll never do that again."

Wilson laughed out loud. "Yes you will."

"Wasn't that my line, though?"

He didn't bother with a reply, just rolled his eyes and handed his friend back the cane. He was smiling though, up until House whacked him on the shin with it. "Ow!" he yelped. "What was that for?"

"You said you wanted to be like me, I guess I've done too good a job. You went from Saint Jimmy to a mean guy who steals canes from cripples! I've finally corrupted you. Everyone who doesn't already hate me will now!"

Rubbing his abused shin, he made a mental note to have Chase hold House's iPod hostage when they get home. If he promised him impunity from House's wrath, the Aussie would go along with it. Too bad for Chase, he couldn't actually deliver said impunity…

"James Wilson?" A young blond nurse called from the doorway. Wilson stood up quickly wincing as the motion pulled the injured skin. House got up a little more slowly and followed him through the door. Taking in the cane and the limp, she turned to Wilson. "Sorry, patients only."

He looked at her, then House. "But I am the patient!"

The nurse looked at her paper. "Sir, this says the patient is thirty-eight. That looks a little young for him, but there's no way you're 38!"

Wilson smiled. "That's the nicest thing I've heard all day. But yeah, I'm the patient, and I'm 38."

She blushed, then turned to House. "Sorry, then. Patients only."

"But I'm the patient's doctor!"

Unsure what to do, she said "Okay, wait here and I'll clear it with Doctor Ann. If she says okay, you can come back."

House opened his mouth to protest, but Wilson cut him off. "House, I won't be long. Just wait, and I'll be back soon. All I need is a tetnus shot."

He started to sit back down, then heard the nurse say to Wilson, "Oh, you'll need more than that. At the very least we'll have to draw blood, check the wound, you'll probably need a shot of antibiotics, probably stitches from the way the wound is bleeding."

Wilson looked down to see a patch of blood on his new jeans, and House sighed. It was going to be a long night.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Wilson sat alone, cold again in only a hospital gown, in a tiny cubical that would have made even one of their clinic patients claustrophobic. He was irritated and wondered what was taking so long. There wasn't another patient in the ER, every other cubical was empty and the privacy curtain open. He held a small stack of 4X4 gauze pads to his wound, trying once again to stop the bleeding, hoping that Dr. Ann would hurry the hell up. When she finally came in, he was slightly horrified at the fact that this woman would be in charge of his treatment. She didn't look even 25, not near old enough to practice medicine unsupervised, and was morbidly obese and slightly unkempt. Long black hair fell messily in her face, and her skin had not yet cleared of its acne. He felt bad for jumping to such conclusions based solely on appearance, but when she opened her mouth it became abundantly clear that his first impression had been spot-on.

"You seem to have gotten on the bad side of one of the natives, yes?" she said in a thick eastern-European accent. Hungarian. Or maybe Croatian. How in the hell did they even understand her here in this little Hick town??

"Yeah," he admitted. "I'm just here for a tetnus shot. Give me one and I'll be out of your hair."

She shook her head. "I am the doctor, let me decide what you need."

That pissed him off. "I'm a doctor too."

She stared at him up and down. "Proctologist?"

"Oncologist."

"Then you're as useless as a proctologist when it comes to snakebites. Do you want your leg to rot off?" Wilson looked at her in shock. She took that as a no. "Then sit down and I'll stitch your leg up."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

House was getting more and more irritated as the time passed. Wilson had been in there an awful long time. He sat there impatiently, tapping his cane, wishing he had his lacrosse ball when he heard the sound his friend made through the double doors. It was somewhere between a yelp of surprise and a cry of pain. When did Jimmy get to be such a baby about needles? He wrote it off as nothing more than that, until he heard the yelling, followed by a crash. The he scrambled to his feet as quickly as possible.

The thought briefly occurred to him that the door might be locked, and he might not be able to get in, but that wouldn't stop him from trying. He didn't know what was going on in there, but he was the only one allowed to torture Jimmy! Busting through the fortunately unlocked door, he scanned the room for his friend.

He found Wilson standing against a wall in what could almost be called a room, his injured leg bend at the knee in an effort to pull it up behind him. A tray and a suture kit were laying on the floor beside the table that had been knocked over, and a very pissed off woman had Wilson cornered. "You are NOT touching me again!" Wilson demanded, not yet noticing House.

"What the Hell is going on here?!" House demanded.

"She's trying to stitch up my leg without numbing it first!" Wilson exclaimed.

"Would you relax!" exclaimed Dr. Ann. "I numbed it, you big baby!"

"Not very well, apparently! Considering I could feel you sewing my skin back together! House, we're getting out of here, now! I'd rather die of tetnus than let these Neanderthals touch me again!"

"Sit down, Dr. Wilson! Don't make me call security! And you, get out of here! I am going to call security!"

"What are you, Russian?" House asked her, conversationally.

"What?!" she exclaimed.

"Where are you from? Where did you hatch, or whatever you did? Your accent doesn't exactly suggest that you were born in Cleveland, so which ocean did you cross to get here?"

"I'm Hungarian. Why is that your business?"

He looked at Wilson, who was trying to sit back down now that the sadistic doctor was focused on House. He picked up his lower leg to try to remove the hooked needle from his skin without hurting himself further, but ended up just leaving it. It hurt, but trying to move it was a little too much without more lidocaine.

"Because," House continued as if he wasn't watching his best friend trying to remove a sharp piece of metal from his own flesh. "This is America, not some Russian gulag, this man is a much respected oncologist with enough powerful friends to have you working somewhere that requires you to ask if customers want fries with their order for the rest of your life. I am a slightly less respected diagnostician who has enough powerful friends to make sure the rest of your life doesn't extend past his scar healing. That being the situation, I think you should bring me some more lidocaine –a lot more than you supposedly used- and get out of the way. After that, you should prepare a tetnus shot, and some antibiotics, also which I will give him. And if you do this quickly, I won't prove to you how quick both my lawyer and my friends in organized crime can get here."

She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. The sooner she got these two out of her hospital, the better. She turned on her heels and left. House sat down at the far end of the bed, and motioned for Wilson to put his leg up, which he did. House examined it carefully, trying not to touch it. Once he saw the wound up close, in the light, he winced. Four pointy teeth going in couldn't have caused this much damage. He must have done this himself, trying to get the squirming beast off of Wilson's leg. That sucked. "Hang on, Jimmy. If she's not back in thirty seconds with the lidocaine, I'll give you two vicodon knock you out, and stitch you up then, okay?"

Wilson managed a tight smile. "And you're sure it will actually be lidocaine, not dextrose or something that will eat my leg off?"

"Nah, I think I scared her pretty good. She'll behave, assuming that she actually knows what lidocaine is. What's with this place, anyway? It's like Children of the Corn! Is anyone in this town over 25?" Just then, a nurse handed him a syringe, and scuttled away without looking at them. "Yup, I scared them good." He began injecting the lidocaine into the area around the injured area, then gave it a second to kick in. Watching Wilson's face, he prodded the wound with the needle. No reaction. He pushed on it with his finger. "Did you feel that?"

Wilson shook his head. "Nope."

"Okay. So, how do you feel?"

"You don't ask how people feel. There's a question behind that."

"You feel up for a party? 'Cause the pretty little thing that signed you in just told me her brother is throwing the 'biggest shindig this county's ever seen', and she gave me directions. Ever been to a real redneck 'shindig'?"

"Can't say that I have. Have you?"

"Nope. Looking forward to the first, though."

"I don't know. I'm about through with this town."

House dropped the needle into the tray. "You're also done with your stitches. I'll go get the other stuff, and we'll be good to go." He wondered off toward the nurse's station, and Wilson sat up to admire House's stitch work. Not bad. He eased his jeans back on quickly before the lidocaine wore off. He rubbed the back of his neck and waited to see what hair-brained mess this was going to lead to.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Still not mine (dammit!)

A/N: Wilson's getting a little OOC, but tha's kinda the point of the story. Oh, and it gets a tiny bit sappy towards the end, but I think it's justified. Maybe I'm wrong. But you could review and let me know...(Please?)

House hobbled slower than usual so he didn't outrun Wilson, who was limping worse now than he had been when they arrived. He tried to convince himself that it was the work of the sadistic bitch from the ER, but he knew that more than likely it was from the tetnus vaccine and Rocephon antibiotic he had just injected into the younger man's left hip.

They finally made it to the car, and House winced as he watched Wilson gingerly lowered himself into the passenger seat. "Glad to be out of there," he muttered letting his eyes fall closed. "So, how do we get to this party?"

"We don't have to go," House said. "You're wiped out and hurt, we'll just get a room somewhere and crash out." He popped a vicodon into his mouth and chewed it up.

Wilson opened his eyes. "No, that's okay. Sounds like fun."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Wilson said. "We're here to have an adventure, that sounds like the perfect place. I'm sure my leg will have eased off a little by the time we get there. Did you have to give both shots in the same hip?"

"When did you get to be such a wuss? Anyway, that leg already hurt. What was the point in making the other one sore too? Completely incapacitating you so I had to get Dr. Ann to carry you out?" He shook his head as he pulled out on the main road. "What kind of last name is Ann? It's not Hungarian, it's not really even American."

"It's her first name," Wilson clarified. "Her full name is on the discharge paper." He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at it. "No wonder they call her by her given name. I can't begin to pronounce it. G-R-E-B-A-N-D-O-V-E-R-I-A-D-I-A."

"You sure you're up for this?" House asked one more time.

"Carpe diem," Wilson said. "Hey, can I have a vicodon?" House complied, and ten minutes later, he was sound asleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The over-stressed young oncologist woke up as the road disintegrated around the speeding vehicle, and looked around. "Are we lost again?"

"I don't think so," House replied. "I think this is where we're going."

The road had evaporated into little more than a hiking trail, and there were a few cars parked around the end of the clearing. The path wound up the hill, and though House saw the problem first, Wilson was only a split second behind him. He was tactful as always about it, though. "I don't think I can make the climb," he said, ignoring the fact that the end of that thought was that there was no way in hell House could make it. "So…, now what?"

Before House could respond, they heard a motor beside them as a young man on a yellow 4-wheeler pulled up to them. "Sweet ride, man."

"Thanks," House replied. "Hey, listen, this chick at the hospital invited us to a party. Are we anywhere close?"

"Rebecca invited you? Okay, yeah, it's up the road here. You'll never get this up there. You need a ride?"

Wilson met his eyes, nodding his ascent, and House said "Sure would. Got room on there for both of us?"

The man nodded. "Yeah." He patted the cargo rack. "One of you over here, the other on the other side. I'm Daniel, by the way. Rebecca is my sister."

House opened his mouth to introduce them, but Wilson beat him to it. "I'm Greg, and this is my friend Jimmy." House broke into a broad grin. What was with the whole switching names thing? Hey, if it made Wilson happy, he could answer to Jimmy for a few hours. God knows he had tried to convince people Wilson was him enough times…

"So you're the one having the party, huh? I was told it would be the biggest thing going on for a while." House tried to make conversation as they two of them got themselves situated on the rack and got a good grip.

"Not me," said Daniel. "Our other brother, Joey. It's his 21st birthday. We've smuggled enough alcohol up here to flood the mountain. Gonna be a blast. You ready?"

Wilson wasn't sure, he'd never been on a 4-wheeler before, nor had House to his knowledge, but both nodded. He started the machine and they flew toward the mountain. House momentarily lost his grip, and Wilson grabbed his wrist before he fell. The chilled night air blew Wilson's hair, usually so carefully sculpted, back from his face. He was grinning like an idiot, and House wasn't sure if he was stoned off his ass from the vicodon he had taken, (Wilson was _such_ a lightweight!) or if he was truly enjoying himself.

They stopped halfway up the mountain when they stopped beside a stalled pickup truck. "Hey, Mikey! Having trouble?" Daniel called to the driver. A big man in jeans and a flannel shirt got out of the truck.

"Think I popped a radiator hose. I got it under control."

"Anything I can do?"

Mikey looked at the trio, and said, "Yeah, you got room on there for the cooler?"

A brief glance at the space between House and Wilson confirmed it, and their driver asked them, "You guys mind?"

"Not as long as I can have some of whatever's in there," Wilson replied, confirming to House that he was definitely flying high on either life or pharmaceuticals. Daniel only laughed, and handed Wilson a bottle before securing the cooler, which he opened and swallowed half of without even looking at the label. He made a face and pulled it back to see what it was. "What the hell…?" he muttered to himself. He had never had this lemony stuff. Seemed like he would remember. Oh, well, he thought, draining the rest of it just as the four-wheeler took off again. Wilson grinned at House. This was fun. He wasn't sure why he didn't let go like this more often. Or why he gave House such a hard time about the pills. If two could make him feel this good, how could he begrudge House the same thing?

They arrived at the top of the hill, and House slid off his side of the vehicle, then went around to help Wilson. Surprisingly, he was still relatively secure on his feet, but if his next drink went down as quickly as the last, he wouldn't be for long.

There was a huge bonfire in the middle of the area, and three dozen drunk people scattered around. Heavy metal music blasted from the speakers of a Dodge truck. House looked around, taking in the scene. Wilson wondered around, talking to people, being social, and generally having fun. It was nice to see him enjoying himself; the man was way too serious for his own good. The clothes really did make him look like he was 25 again, and seeing him dance with that girl (literally, girl. House was sure going farther than dancing would land Wilson in jail.) completed the image. Even the lines that had settled around his friend's face seemed to fade, and House hated to think just how many of them he had put there himself.

Someone shoved a bottle into his hand, without a label on it, and he took a quick drink, then very nearly spit it out. "What the hell is this?" he demanded.

A young woman looked at him. Joey calls it Napalm. He makes it himself. It's a little strong. Some people can't handle it…" She smiled seductively as she issued what was an obvious challenge, and under ordinary circumstances, he would have drunk himself into a coma in response just to have a shot at waking up with this girl, but he had a greater purpose here than sex. Vicodon and alcohol…someone had to keep an eye on Wilson, make sure he didn't get in too much trouble. Wilson got a little…goofy…when he was drunk. "I could handle it better than anyone here," he told the girl. "But tonight, I have to keep an eye on him." He pointed to the inebriated doctor just in time to see him empty another bottle only to replace it with another. House winced. At this rate, his liver wouldn't survive the night. House could give Wilson a kidney if he had to, and would without a second thought, but no one in his right mind would transplant what passed for the older man's liver into anyone. "He doesn't get out much."

The girl laughed like it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard. "I hear that," she said. "In fact, I'm kinda there too. By the way, I'm Teresa."

"I'm G…uh, Jimmy Wilson." If Wilson got to make it up as he goes along, so could he. "The guy is my brother, Greg."

"That's nice," said Teresa, and House smiled when the fire caught her brilliant green eyes. "You know," she added. "We should get to know each other better. And he should meet my twin sister, Stephanie." She nodded toward Wilson.

House swallowed hard. "Twins?" he asked.

"Yup."

That didn't even require thought! "Stay here, I'll go get him."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When Wilson woke up the next morning, the first thing he was aware of was that he felt like he had been hit by a train. His head hurt, his stomach had a mind of its own, and his whole body ached. His mouth felt like he had swallowed a damn raccoon.

The second thing he was aware of was that he had no earthly idea where he was. The bedroom was done in yellow and white, with a four-poster bed. It was neat and organized, nothing out of place. Very girly, very tasteful, but also unfamiliar. A homemade quilt and yellow sheet covered him, an he realized that that was all that covered him.

The third thing he realized was that he wasn't alone. A beautiful was sleeping peacefully beside him, long blond hair falling all around the other pillow. She was as unfamiliar as the room. Damn, he didn't even know her name. He hoped it had been obvious that he was drunk last night, that he wouldn't be expected to remember. He didn't know how he got here or where here was and…where the Hell was-

Suddenly the door burst open, and the person he was wondering about scrambled in and locked the door. "Up, Jimmy, sleepy-time's over. Up, NOW!"

He sat up. "House, what the hell? Where are we? Better yet, where are my clothes?"

"What's going on?" the blond muttered, sitting up, every bit as naked as Wilson.

"No time to explain, we gotta go. And your clothes are probably still in the shed where Teresa parked the four-wheeler. This is Stephanie, by the way. Now, come on, Jimmy, Daddy's home, and he has a gun!"

Wilson's eyes widened, and he took in the fact that House was only wearing his t-shirt and boxers. He grabbed the sheet from the bed, wrapped it around himself and jumped out of the bed, forgetting for a moment how bad his hip and leg ached. "Window?"

House nodded. "Best plan I have. You act like you've done this before, Jimmy."

Stephanie looked confused. "But I thought you were Jimmy!"

Both ignored her. "Ran from a husband a few times, but never a dad. How old are you?"

"Sixteen," she replied.

Identical expressions of horror crossed both doctor's faces. "Window!"

Wilson ran too it, and opened it just as the door knob rattled, then shook violently. "Open the damn door!" a voice demanded. "Open it or I'll just start shooting!"

"You two better go," Stephanie said casually. "He's a good shot."

Wilson, still wearing nothing but the sheet dove out the window, and pulled himself to his feet and helped House out the window. "Go," House told Wilson. "Run on ahead, in case he gets out here!"

Wilson looked at him like he was insane. "Yeah, like I'm really gonna do that."

"Didn't think so, but I offered. Eliminates my guilt if that guy shoots us."

They were almost to the edge of the woods when a bullet flew by Wilson's head. House grabbed the younger man and pulled him to the ground. A man was running at them at full speed, only about thirty yards away, but they didn't dare try to get up. Together, they could hold their own in an actual fight, House better at actual fighting, Wilson with the advantage of mobility, but neither could fight a bullet. "We're gonna die," Wilson stated.

"We can't die," House replied. "Heaven don't want us and Hell's afraid we'll take over."

"It's been fun."

"Am I supposed to say something sweet and touching now?"

Wilson smirked. "If you did, I'd die of a heart attack before he got a chance to kill me."

"You're the best friend I've ever had. I love you like a brother."

Wilson choked on his own saliva. "What?!"

House shrugged and grinned back at him. "Had to try. Heart attacks are a lot less painful than…well, whatever he has in mind." Wilson wanted to hug him, but settled for a snort and roll of his eyes. Did immediate life threats make a person sentimental?

The father was almost on them, shouting that they were dead men, that he would kill them in very specific and creative ways, when they heard sirens. Wilson twisted around onto his back to watch as the father leveled the pistol at him. He put his arms up to his face. "Please, don't kill us! We're sorry!"

House also turned over and sat up, but had the good sense to keep his mouth shut. One time getting shot was enough to teach him not to antagonize the man with the gun. This was bad. Getting shot was bad, but of all the things he had dealt with in his life, he didn't think he could stand to watch Wilson die. He wished Wilson had run ahead when he told him to. The terrified look on Wilson's face was enough to override his common sense. "Sir, He didn't do anything. I'm the one who did...whatever you think we did. He was passed out, and I couldn't leave him."

The man growled, and backhanded House with the gun, laying open the side of his cheek with the sight. "Then why is he the one wearing my daughter's bed sheet, dumbass?"

The man had not re-aimed yet, and Wilson saw this as the perfect chance. He sprang up and tackled him, knocking the gun away. House jumped into the fray, but he was just too much for them. A pair of blows to Wilson's stomach curled him into a ball, and a lucky shot to House's right thigh nearly paralyzed him. He tasted vomit in the back of his throat, and was barely able to force the small cry from his throat before it locked up. Wilson tried to sit up to get to him, and found the gun barrel pressed against his forehead. Tears filled his eyes. It was funny that House being in this much pain was harder for him than the thought that they were both going to die. "Please, you have to let me help him, he has a problem, he's hurt!"

The man didn't respond, just cocked the pistol. Wilson closed his eyes, said a final prayer that it would be quick and that House would survive. Just when he thought he was gone, they heard a familiar voice. "Drop then gun! NOW!"

He risked opening his eyes. A sheriff's deputy stood behind their attacker, his gun drawn, too. Wilson recognized him. "Daniel?"


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: You'll have to excuse how much time I spent inside Wilson's head in this chapter. I was watching Much Ado About Nothing while I was writing it. I think I did a little better getting Wilson in character this time, but I think I lost House's character a little. Sorry. Reviews make the world go 'round, so keep it up. Let me know if you have any thoughts as to where this should go from here.

Wilson could have cried with relief. "Thank God you're here! This guy's going to kill us! And he hurt my friend, you have to see if he's okay, this guy won't let me check on him…" He was aware that he was babbling, and forced himself to stop. He remembered the younger man from the night before. Actually, the last thing he remembered was vomiting into the grass with House on one side and Daniel on the other, it taking both of them to hold him upright.

"Shut up!" The angry father growled, pressing the cold metal even harder against Wilson's forehead, threatening to push him back flat on the ground. "Go away, Daniel. Or at least take your badge off."

The man Wilson thought to be their savior gave him a cold look and glared dispassionately at where House was laying. Mercifully, the older man had passed out from the pain the blow to his weakest area had caused. "Can't do that, Uncle Bobby," he said, gun still drawn. "But I can handle this in a way that you can't. I'm the only one on duty today, so it'll just be me and them at the jail."

Wilson's eyes widened in horror. This was bad, but it could get much worse with the addition of handcuffs, cells, nightsticks, and pepper spray. A pissed off father was bad. A younger, stronger-looking man, a cop to boot, could do a lot more damage to the two men who had been caught with his underage cousin.

The father looked at his nephew, then dropped the pistol from Wilson's head. "Have at 'em, boy. You're the law, after all." He stepped out of the way, leaving Wilson in the grass, wondering if he would have been better off with a bullet to the head.

Daniel motioned with his gun. "Get up. Go check on your friend. What's wrong with his leg?" Shocked for a moment, he realized that with House only wearing his boxers, the scar was clearly visable. He cringed, then lurched to his feet and ran to House's side.

As he checked his friend's pulse, the blue eyes fluttered open. "Don't move," Wilson whispered fiercely. "Play dead." They're eyes met for a moment, and they communicated silently.

"_What's happening?"_

"_Don't worry, I'm handling it."_

"_Can't I help?"_

"_Trust me."_

House let his eyes fall closed again, pain still clear on his face, and Wilson hoped that as long as he pretended to be out, these people wouldn't hurt him. He turned back to Daniel. "He's still unconscious, but when he wakes up, he'll be hurting pretty bad. He had an infarction, and lost a large part of his thigh muscle. He's in chronic pain, and your uncle hit him there."

Daniel looked impatient, then pulled Wilson to his feet. He spun him around and handcuffed his arms behind him. "C'mon," he said, dragging Wilson to the car and shoving him in the back seat.

"But-"

"We'll get him! Help me get this guy, Uncle Bobby." Daniel's uncle followed him back to where House was laying. Wilson didn't want to watch, knowing there was no way they could (or would) move him without hurting him, and that there was very little chance that House would continue to lay still, and here he was handcuffed and unable to help him. But he was unable to look away, and was surprised to see Daniel gently lift House's legs while the other man roughly grabbed his shoulders. They packed him to the cruiser and put him in the back seat. In another gesture of compassion, Daniel situated him carefully, placing his head in Wilson's lap and bending his knees up so his feet sat flat on the seat rather than letting his legs flop to the side. Wilson saw House wince as his right leg was moved, but to his credit, he didn't move. Somewhere inside, he marveled at the level of trust his friend must have in him to remain motionless through this, despite the pain being moved caused.

Finally, the father left them to his nephew's care. Daniel got in the police car, started it and drove off. House opened one eye to look at Wilson, who tried to reassure him.

"_It's under control."_

"_There has to be something I can do."_

"_Just be still and don't make me worry about you."_

"_Dammit, Jimmy!"_

Wilson wished he had his hands free, and could rest one on his friend's shoulder or some equally comforting gesture, but they were locked behind him. Then he realized that he still had no clothes on, and was glad he had the presence of mind to wrap the sheet in such a way that it stayed put. It was sad that he had run from enough pissed off husbands to be good at that. He shifted uncomfortably, and House raised his head just a bit to allow him to get better situated. Daniel had been silent since he got in the car, not even glancing at them in the mirror, and Wilson racked his brain for a way out of this. At the very least, they were going to get their asses kicked. Add to that the fact that he, at least, had probably committed a felony. And House had…what the hell had House been doing while he had slept with a kid? Usually, the older man could be counted on the be a decent "babysitter" on the rare occasion that Wilson got drunk.

He thought the situation over as clearly as he could. The adrenalin rush was fading, and he realized how badly his head still hurt. With the handcuffs on, he was worse than helpless. He could do nothing to protect himself from fists or nightsticks, or cover his eyes from pepper spray. It was hard to even balance. He was pretty much at this guy's mercy. House wasn't handcuffed, though. Maybe if he played unconscious long enough, he could get the element of surprise on the deputy. If you ignored the fact that the gun kinda unbalanced the odds.

Finally Wilson could stand it no longer, and had to try bargaining with their captor. Sitting here doing nothing was worse torture than actually getting hurt. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't know she was so young. I never would have-"

Daniel jerked the wheel, roughly pulling the squad car over to the side of the road and getting out. He opened the back door and grabbed Wilson's shoulder. His breath caught in his throat, but the young man simply spun his back toward the door and unlocked the cuffs. "Tell your friend to sit up. He sucks at playing possum."

Both men looked startled, but House sat up, adjusting himself to a comfortable position. "Did I give it away when I raised my head to let Jimmy get comfortable?"

"Nah," Daniel said. "You opened your eyes for a second when we picked you up."

Wilson was confused. "So what are you doing? Are you going to hit us, or shoot us, or whatever?"

He shook his head. "No, I just had to be an ass in front of my uncle, so he would leave you guys with me. Otherwise, he would have shot you."

House nodded, but Wilson was horribly confused. "So you're not pissed at us? I mean, not complaining or anything, but I'm pissed at us! At least, at myself. She's sixteen, that's a felony!"

House smirked. "You think I'm innocent as a choirboy? You don't remember much about last night, do you?" Daniel bit his lip to keep down his own smile. This guy really didn't hold his liquor well. House had explained most of the story to him last night while they tried to hold Wilson up out of the pool of his own vomit, how he was stressed out, heading straight-on for a breakdown. He liked these two, and would have warned them about Stephanie and Teresa but he had gone to get another beer, and they were gone when he got back. When they told him where they had gone, he knew he should be around his uncle's home early the next morning.

"Not much," Wilson admitted.

"First of all, they didn't look sixteen last night," said Daniel. "And it's not a felony. In Kentucky, sixteen is legal."

"They?" He asked, still confused.

House laughed out loud at that. "You don't really think I' leave you alone with a sixteen-year-old girl if I didn't have one of my own?"

"My cousins are identical twins," Daniel clarified. "Now, let's get you two to your car before Uncle Bobby calls the jail and sees that none of us are there."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Are you going to get in trouble with your uncle for letting us go?" Wilson asked. He knew that things were done differently in this part of the world, and he didn't want to get their new friend hurt. His uncle seemed more than a little unstable.

Daniel shook his head. "Nah. I'll tell him I beat you both within an inch of your lives, then dropped you at the state line. You guys are safe, Uncle Bobby is avenged, he feels that he has done his part to protect his daughters' "virtue"." Shaking his head, he said, "Their virtue was past protecting two years ago. There aren't many in this county that I haven't snuck out of there in one way or another." They pulled up to where House had parked the Corvette.

Daniel opened the back door for them, and let out first Wilson, then House. His cane got left behind in the field, and Wilson slid an arm around him to help him walk to the car. Daniel slid in behind him. "I'll help him. I assume you have spare clothes in your car?" Wilson nodded. "I'll help him, you get some clothes. And get him some pants!"

House made a face, as if realizing for the first time that he was less than dressed. "This is getting old, Wilson! That's two sets of clothes you've lost in twelve hours!"

Wilson laughed as he dug through the duffle bag to find the appropriate garments as Daniel and House made their way to the car. Still digging around, he found House's spare cane, and tossed it to them. House caught it, and shrugged away from their rescuer. He sat down in the driver's seat to pull on the jeans Wilson had left there as Wilson put on his underwear and jeans before loosening the sheet.

Unsure of what to do with it, he picked it up and handed it to Daniel, who took it with an embarrassed grin. "Thanks," their new friend said.

"Thank you," Wilson told him. "I thought we were dead back there."

"You would have been. Look, you guys be careful. And don't stop until you are out of the county. People around here know everything that happens. Get out of town."

"Definitely," agreed Wilson, pulling a t-shirt over his head. "We're gone. But once again, thank you."

"Yeah," agreed House. "Thanks."

"No problem," Daniel said, getting back in the cruiser. "Look, which of you was with Stephanie?"

"Uh, me," replied Wilson uncertainly. "Wasn't I?" he asked House.

"Yeah."

Daniel looked down. "You should go to the health department soon. She's got a…social disease." With that, he sped off leaving a cloud of dust.

Wilson looked at House, sitting in the driver's seat, and in perfect sync burst out laughing. He collapsed into the passenger seat, and the both of them laughed until tears rolled down their cheeks. Exhaustion, pain, disbelief, and more exhaustion made the situation beyond funny.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Wait, let me check...Nope, still not mine.

A/N: Sorry this is a little heavy on the EMS details. I tried to tone it down, but they crept out anyway. This chapter is for Bradley, Shrek, Dewayne and all the other medics and medic students who are sick of hearing doctors say how much better they could do our job. Sorry to make Wilson seem so weak, but he was the only one I could do that with, and sorry for any OOCness on House's part. As always, R&R. Enjoy!

They were only about three miles from where they parked the car when Wilson smiled. "This has been crazy."

"Yep," House replied, face cracking in what could be a smile.

"But it has been fun. This was just what I needed."

House rolled his eyes. "Are we going to talk about our feelings now? We may have to wait, I need to stop and buy some tampons."

It was Wilson's turn to roll his eyes. He was silent for a few moments, until he was sure that House was listening rather than preparing a smart-ass comment. "Thanks," he said quietly.

"Any time," House replied, equally quiet.

There was a moment of comfortable silence, companionable silence in which they both reflected on the past few days, the past few months, the past decade or so that they had been friends. It was bordering on touching and Wilson wandered how House was able to stand it when a blue blur shot past them on the side of the road. "What the hell was that?!" Wilson demanded.

House didn't answer him, as it hurt his soul to used the phrase 'I don't know', but followed the blur with his eyes until it crashed head-first into a tree. "Four-wheeler," he replied as if simply answering Wilson's question rather than witnessing an accident

"Shit!" Wilson exclaimed. As they got closer to the crash, he looked at House. "Where are you going?! That guy's hurt! We have to stop!"

"Nah, really?" House snarled. "Ya' think?" Finally, he pulled to the side. Before he could open his door, Wilson was running to the side of the injured boy. Blood pooled around the boy's head, and some leaked out of the corner of his mouth. Checking the unconscious teenager's airway to make sure it wasn't filling with blood, then placed him on his back. House hurried to his side as fast as he could, setting down his navy-blue emergency kit beside them. "Ambulance will be here in fifteen minutes."

Wilson was all but frozen. He had been a doctor for over a decade, but this might as well have been another planet from his clean-_sterile!_-well-stocked, organized hospital. He had never had the strong feelings for Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital that he had at this moment. He would give him left arm to have this kid there now. Hell, he'd give three fingers for a spine board and an x-ray machine!

"House…!" He choked, unsure what he was going to say next. He didn't think he was going to admit to the panic he felt, but he knew it had to be obvious in his eyes. His med school ER rotation felt like eons ago.

The older man wasn't able to kneel on the ground beside the patient, but he could talk Wilson through it. "Easy, Jimmy. You're a doctor, just relax." He put a hand on Wilson's shoulder.

The words were supposed to be reassuring, but they weren't. "I'm a freakin' oncologist, House! I don't do trauma!"

He simply handed Wilson a stethoscope. "Check his breath sounds. Twenty bucks says he's got a tension pneumo. Maybe two."

Any other time, Wilson would have either taken the bet or made a smart-ass comment on how inappropriate it was to bet on patients. Right now, however, he didn't care, just as long as House could jump-start him into doctor mode. He took the stethoscope and listened to the boy's chest. Sure enough, there were no breath sounds on the left side. Something, most likely a broken rib, had punctured his lung. He had to reinflate it somehow. Looking at House's meager medical kit (he was surprised House actually carried a medical kit, but House wasn't a person who liked to be caught unprepared). "Don't suppose you have a chest tube kit in that thing, do you?"

House rummaged around the bag, and tossed Wilson a 10-gauge IV needle. "Improvise. Didn't you ever watch _Emergency_?"

"Huh?"

"You know, Johnny and Roy? 'Squad 51, Rampart' and all of that? How did you ever become a doctor?"

"You mean you want me to do a needle decompression?! Here? Now? Here?!" Wilson couldn't actually believe House wanted him to stick a needle in this kid's chest, into his lung, as a means of fixing it. He had a new respect for paramedics. Who could work in this environment? House showed no signs of answering, and opened a gauze pad. Wilson presumed that he was going to try to stop the bleeding, so he went back to the task at hand. He counted down to the area between the boy's second and third ribs, found just the right spot, and cringed as he jammed the giant needle into the kid's chest. He looked up. "Christ, House! He can't be sixteen yet!"

House looked at the gauze pad in his hand grimly. "And if he lives to be sixteen, he'll be in diapers." He held out the pad for Wilson to see, and he felt his stomach drop. House had touched the pad to the blood around the kid's head. There was a patch of red, and a dirty halo around it where a watery substance had been absorbed too. "Spinal fluid," he pointed out, in case Wilson hadn't seen it. "His brain's scrambled."

Just then, they heard sirens in the distance. The boy's breathing had improved with Wilson's field decompression, but he was showing no signs of waking up. He crawled around to the kid's head, and took several more gauze pads from House. He found the source of the blood, a spot on the back of his head where the bone moved freely around his gently probing fingers. Severely fractured skull. Wonderful. He placed ten pads over the wound and wrapped it with roller gauze. It rapidly soaked through with blood, and Wilson was about to cover them with more when House muttered, "Shit!"

Turning around, he realized that the kid had quit breathing. House carefully sat down, and pulled a bag-valve mask out of his bag. Placing the mask over the patient's face, he gave two quick breaths, and checked for a pulse. None. "Shit!" he repeated. "Wilson, get over here!"

"Lost his pulse?"

"No, I just got lonely!"

Adrenaline took over, and he remembered every code he had ever worked like they happened yesterday. He started doing compressions while House breathed for the kid. He counted silently to himself as he went through the familiar rhythm, the physical exertion that he wasn't used to. Somewhere deep down, he thought about how sore he would be in the morning.

Sweat was pouring off of him when the ambulance and state trooper pulled up behind them. A young paramedic ran up to him. "What's the story?" he asked.

:He flew past us on the four-wheeler, then hit the tree there. He was breathing when we got to him, but had a tension pneumothorax on his left side. No breath sounds." The exertion of forcing life into a broken person was getting to him, and he had to pause to catch his breath.

House took over the narrative. "My friend decompressed the lung, and bandaged the head wound-"

"Skull's splintered," Wilson panted, not breaking rhythm.

House took back over as if he hadn't been interrupted. "CSF halo present in the blood. Stopped breathing four minutes ago, lost the pulse soon after. By the way, we're doctors."

"Yeah, I remember you guys," said the medic, and House looked up for the first time. Joey, Daniel's little brother. Shit, they were supposed to be gone by now.

"I suppose that's why you didn't freak when I told you he decompressed the lung."

Joey smiled. He looked remarkably like his brother, a little shorter, slighter build, but the same hair, and the same dark chocolate-brown eyes. "Yeah, pretty much."

"So, if you guys will be kind enough to take over…"

Joey winced. "Uh, yeah, well, we can't really do that…"

"Why not?" asked Wilson. "I'm about to give out, someone HAS to take over!"

"No, I can take over that," he said, easing the exhausted doctor aside and taking over the compressions. Wilson in turn took the respirator from House, allowing him to find a more comfortable position. "But he has to ride in with us," he finished, nodding to Wilson.

"WHAT?"

Joey shrugged. "We don't have protocols for needle decompressions. Since you did it, it's abandonment if you don't go." He looked sympathetically at them. "But if you do go, my uncle will find out that you're not in jail, and it won't be pleasant…"

Wilson looked uncertainly at House. If he went, there would be trouble. If he didn't, he was abandoning his patient. Finally, he sighed. "You get in the car, drive to the county line and wait. I'll go with them. Joey, can you take me there after we get done?" The medic nodded.

"And I'm just going to wait there? And hope you don't get yourself killed in the meantime?"

Wilson nodded. "Do you have a better plan?"

"I could…oh, I don't know, GO WITH YOU??! NOT abandon you here in hillbilly hell? Come on, you know what Cuddy'll do to me if you come back in less than perfect shape. I'll probably get fifty lashes anyway for your new scar. Hmm. Not that I'm at all opposed to taking my punishment like a man…"

"House…"

He stepped closer to His younger friend and spoke dead serious. "I'm not abandoning you here. I'll follow behind the ambulance."

"But-"

House stopped him. "You wouldn't leave me. Don't ask me to do something you couldn't do." He straightened slightly. "Besides, I wouldn't want to have to answer to anything when we get home. Cuddy made me responsible for you."

Wilson rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we'd hate for the babysitter not to get his tip." Then he got in the ambulance.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He took over CPR for Joey as soon as the crew had put him on a spine board and put him on the bed. They worked on the patient the whole trip to the hospital, but weren't able to get him back. After Wilson explained it all to the ER doctor, he was ready to get go. As he walked slowly out to the parking lot where House should be waiting, he saw Daniel standing at the car, talking to House. It did not look like a pleasant topic.

When he reached them, House was getting more than irritated. "We're going! Right now! We'd be gone if we hadn't tried to save that kid! Curse of being a doctor and having a conscience like Jimmy's! Just tell them we were already gone!"

"What's going on?" He asked, knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.

"My uncle swore out a warrant," Daniel began.

House looked him in the eye. "Apparently, we're going to jail."


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: If they were mine, I would play with them a little gentler. But they're not, so I can be a little rough...

A/N: This is becoming more of a hurt/comfort than I anticipated, but I am running with the train of thought because it helps me deal with the stress of the upcoming finals week. Bear with me, I'll be over it soon. I promise I won't damage them too much:) Thanks to Ben for the helicopter line!

"Going to jail?" Wilson echoed, looking at House like he had lost his mind. "What for?"

"Assault," Daniel replied uneasily. "Uncle Bobby says you attacked him."

Wilson dropped his head, letting his chin hit his chest. "Which we did. Or rather, I did."

Daniel shrugged apologetically. "I gotta take both of you in. Warrant says you both attacked him. I'm sorry."

"But he was after us with a gun!" Wilson protested. "What we did stalled him enough that he didn't get to shoot us!"

It pained Daniel to tell them the rest of it. "I know that it won't stand up in court. That's not why he's doing it."

House was not as naïve as Wilson. "He wants us trapped and helpless so that his friends and you can do with us as you please for a little while. Beat the shit out of us and remind us not to mess with his people again."

Daniel looked at the ground. "I did the best I could to protect you, but this is still my town. I have to live here, my family still has to look me in the eye when we're done, and Uncle Bobby won't hesitate to give it to me just as bad if I help you guys again. I'll do what I can for you, but it won't be much." He shut the door, locking them in.

House took his vicodin out of his jacket pocket. He knew it would be a long time before he got any more. Swallowing three instead of chewing them (they would last longer), he offered two to Wilson. The younger doctor shook his head. "Take them," House insisted quietly. "This is not going to be pleasant. There's no reason to be in unnecessary pain."

"I have to be clear-headed," Wilson protested, equally quiet. "I have to be able to think of a way to get us out of here!"

House shook his head. "You won't break out of jail. There is no other way out. You don't need to be clear-headed, you need to be stoned to the point that you don't care about the pain." _Or the fear_, House thought, knowing that for Jimmy, that fear and anticipation, not to mention worrying about his partner in crime, would be worse torture than anything these bastards could do to him physically.

To ease his friend's worry, Wilson took the pills and put them in his mouth. House nodded approvingly, but as soon as he turned his head, Wilson spat them out in his hand. He tucked them into the back pocket of his blood-splattered jeans for safe-keeping. If the pain got bad, House wouldn't care that they'd been in Wilson's mouth, and the back one was the only clean pocket.

When they got a mile from the jail, Daniel pulled over to cuff them. As a minor courtesy, he cuffed House's hands in front of him, so he could hold on to Wilson's arm as they walked inside. His attitude changed as soon as they got to the door. Once inside, he shoved Wilson roughly down on the wooden bench and dragged House up to the desk to book him.

Wilson was trembling as he watched them quickly frisk House. The whole thing about being in jail terrified him, even when it was legitimate. This was even worse. House seemed to be holding it together better, either because this wasn't new to him or because he was trying to keep Wilson calm. He risked a quick grin at his friend as the guard ran a hand down his good leg, but turned away as it turned to a grimace when his bad leg was frisked. "What, no flowers or dinner? Are you even going to respect me in the morning?"

The guard replied with a sharp slap to the area he had already figured out was tender, causing House to let out a yelp and fall to the floor in a pile. The handcuffs made it impossible for him to get up unassisted, and the guard left him laying there. Wilson jumped up to help him, but was grabbed roughly from behind. "You're turn," another guard whispered menacingly, pulling him to the desk.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You're the expert, but aren't they supposed to take these off when they put us in a cell?" Wilson grumbled to House, struggling with his handcuffs. He was leaning against the wall as House sat on the single bunk.

House glared at him. "You watch Law and Order. You tell me."

Giving up trying to relax, Wilson went back to pacing the tiny cell. It certainly wasn't like any jail cell he saw on TV. There were no bars, just solid cinderblock walls and thick steel door. He shuddered when it occurred to him that if there was a fire, they would be cooked like a turkey in an oven before anyone got to them. He was generally claustrophobic, but was trying to keep his panic under control. He wished he had a Xanax, and gave brief consideration to the Vicodin in his back pocket. Some miracle had kept the guards from finding it.

"Jimmy?" House asked, realizing his friend was about half a step from becoming unglued. "Jimmy, talk to me!" Wilson was pacing slightly faster and showed no sings of hearing him. Finally, House struggled to his feet and with difficulty managed to get directly into Wilson's path and stop him. "Breathe!" He commanded, and Wilson finally took a deep, shuddery breath. Chocolate-brown eyes met ice-blue ones and guilt flooded House as he tried to lock onto the part of Wilson's mind that was racing through his eyes like a frightened mouse. Roughly grabbing his left shoulder, House stared at him with more seriousness than he usually could muster. "Do helicopters eat their young?"

"I-WHAT?" Confusion overtook the panic on Wilson's face. Greg, have you lost it?"

House allowed a small relieved smile to cross his lips. "Thank God. I thought you had checked out there for a minute."

His bearings temporarily gathered, The two sat back down side by side on the bunk. Wilson sat gingerly, unsure if it would hold their combined weight, and shook his head. "Do helicopters eat their young?! Where the hell did you come up with that?"

House shrugged. "Paramedic asked me that once. He thought I had a head injury. Said it was a good way to tell if a person was still with you or not."

Wilson shook his head. "So now what? Don't suppose you have a plan?"

"A few. But if you didn't suddenly come into contact with the Force, that cuts out most of them. And if I can't pull a Mr. Fantastic and stretch my way through the lock, there goes the rest of them." Just then, the door swung open, revealing two guards grinning at them like hungry dogs at a perfect cut of filet mignon.

They didn't say a word as they each grabbed one of the prisoners. The man holding House, a burly man with curly dirty-blond hair sticking out from under his black cap, held him firmly down on the bunk and hooked his handcuffs to an eyebolt in the wall behind them with another set of cuffs and with only a slight struggle shackled his feet to the bottom rail of the bunk. Wilson's attacker, a smaller but more muscular bald man, pulled him roughly away from the bunk, but had no need to struggle. "Do as I say," he whispered fiercely into the doctor's ear, "or I'm gonna hurt your friend. See now he's all tied up and can't protect himself? It's you or him, who do you want me to hurt?"

The words had their desired effect, and Wilson forced himself to relax and fall limp against his captor. He made himself remain immobile as the man unlocked his handcuffs and pulled his arms over his head to relock them, pinning his arms up on a metal pipe overhead. The guard finished the job by shackling Wilson's feet together. Wilson's stomach quivered at how vulnerable he was, unable to get his arms down to even soften blows, unable to move his feet more than a few inches without pulling them both out from under him and leaving only his shoulders to support his body weight. A frightened whimper fought for escape, but he stubbornly refused to let the tiny sign of weakness out. Maybe as long as they focused on him, they would leave House alone…

Checking one last time that House was immobile, the second guard stepped up beside his partner and pulled a knife. He menacingly slid it along the curve of Wilson's jaw, enjoying the tremble of fear that coursed through him. "No screaming," the bald man cautioned him. "You can beg if you like, but don't get too loud. If you do, your friend won't appreciate it."

House couldn't see the knife or make out the words that were being said, but he knew it couldn't be good. Wilson seemed to be intentionally avoiding his eyes, so he couldn't read the severity of the situation there either. He could only wait and see how bad it would get. He struggled against the handcuffs, abrading his wrists badly, but he didn't care.

Wilson was trying so hard not to move as the guard gently slid the knife across his throat, not cutting, not even hurting him, just teasing him, drawing out the fear as much as he could before grabbing the collar of Wilson's t-shirt and slicing it from collar to hem. The shredded shirt hung from his shoulders, exposing his chest and stomach. The surge of adrenaline that coursed through him as he thought he was cut subsided with the relief of still being whole, leaving him unprepared when the blond guard stepped away, giving House a clear view as the other guard drove his fist with amazing force into Wilson's abdomen.


	9. Chapter 9

The beating only lasted about five minutes, but to House it seemed to last hours. There was very little that could cause him this level of emotional pain, but being forced to watch these bastards hurt Wilson was almost more than he could take. Blood trickled down his skinned wrists as he fought in vain to get loose, to help his friend.

Wilson was very careful not to look up at him as the guard landed a series of vicious blows to his chest and abdomen, punctuated by a right cross to his jaw. House knew his friend thought he was helping by looking away, but it only made things worse. He couldn't even take the small comfort of looking in his eyes and knowing that he was okay, even though it hurt.

The older doctor felt a wave of nausea as he heard the sickening crack as one of Wilson's ribs broke, and he knew he had to do something. It was obvious that he wasn't going to be able to get loose, that left him one weapon. "Hey, you bastard! You're pretty tough when your victim can't fight back! Let him go and take a shot at me!"

That made Wilson's head shoot up. Blood dripped from his nose, and bruises were beginning to form on the lower half of his face, his chest, and his stomach. He looked pitiful. "Shut up, House!"

But as usual, House plunged on as the guard eyed him warily. "Let him go and take your personal inadequacies out on me. Uncuff me and let's have at this like men!" He looked at Wilson. "Lucky for you, his testosterone booster is about to wear off."

The guard seemed to be considering this, and Wilson let out a tiny whimper. "For the love of God, House, SHUT UP!" He could take the beating easier than he could take watching House suffer through it instead. Blondie whispered something to his partner, and the bald guard turned back to Wilson. "Looks like your friend gets his wish," he told Wilson. Pulling out his keys, Baldy reached for the cuffs. As he unlocked them, he drove his knee full-force into Wilson's groin.

Wilson hit the ground, stifling an agonized cry, and promptly curled into a ball. As he lay on the ground, retching, both guards grabbed House. He tried to protest, to help him, but was barely able to move. They drug House out of the room, leaving Wilson in a pained heap on the floor, unable to even scoot further away from the pool of his own vomit.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

House didn't resist as he was forcibly led down the hallway to the shower. "What's this?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant, to keep his fear inside. "The part where I drop the soap?"

"Nah," said Baldy. "You just gotta shower before we put you in with the rest. We're done."

It couldn't be that easy, but seeing as he didn't have a choice he went inside and took off his clothes. He was very aware that the guards were watching him closely as he limped toward the shower. His leg hurt and he wished he had his cane, but if this was the worst he had to endure, Jimmy was a dozen steps past him.

He started the water, and began to shower. The guards moved a little closer, and he watched them warily. He had seen this movie, knew how it ended, but if they thought he wouldn't put up a fight they were dead wrong…

He was so focused on not letting them get behind him that it didn't register that they had stood up on the wooden bench along the wall. By the time he saw the taser heading for the metal water pipe, it was too late. Blondie hit the button, and the electric current flowed through the stream of water into House's body. It paralyzed him where he stood, and he couldn't even get away. Pain coursed through every nerve and muscle, lighting him on fire. He couldn't even cry out. He wasn't sure how long he was frozen before the darkness mercifully overtook him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Wilson woke up to someone in a uniform shaking him. Pain shot through his entire body, and he tried to play dead, hoping they wouldn't hurt either of them anymore. "Jimmy," the young man whispered, using the name House had told him the previous night. "Jimmy, its Daniel. It's okay. Wake up!"

At the name, Wilson opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that he was still on the floor, but in a different spot, away from his expelled stomach contents. The second was that the entire left side of Daniel's face was covered by an ugly purple bruise, undoubtedly from his psycho uncle. He sat up. "Where's House?"

"He's waiting in the car," Daniel replied. "I took him out first, told him I'd get you while he rested."

"How bad is he hurt?"

"Not bad," said Daniel. "I talked the judge into dropping the bogus charges. C'mon, let's get out of here." He slid his arm under Wilson's shoulders and helped him to his feet.

An alarming wave of nausea hit, and he tried to double over to sooth it, but Daniel held him upright. "You can rest when you're out of here. Let's go."

They made their way painfully to the cruiser, and the young deputy deposited him beside House in the back seat. House was so relieved to see Wilson, it almost brought tears to the cold blue eyes. "Are you-"

"Fine. You?"

"Yeah."

That quick exchange finished, Wilson relaxed into the seat. "I'll take you back to your car," said Daniel. "But I have a question first. You guys just want to run for the hills, or you wanna have some fun? Get a little revenge?"

Wilson smiled, liking the way the boy thought. "Just what did you have in mind?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"So," House asked, hoisting the weapon in his hand. "This is how rednecks get revenge?"

Wilson held the gun carefully, checking over every inch of it with interest. It was too bulky to be mistaken for an actual gun, but still dangerous. "I've never used one of these before."

House raised an eyebrow. "Never played paintball? Man, I have been neglecting you. We gotta play sometime." He finished screwing in the reservoir into the body of the gun and held it up outlaw style. "These are nice! What, ten shots per second?"

"Thirteen," Daniel replied. "That one's mine, and the other one's Joey. It only gets about eleven, but it's more accurate. You guys got the plan?"

The doctors nodded as solemnly as soldiers going into battle.

Daniel was about a mile away from his uncle's house when he told them to get into position. House shouldered the paintball gun out the window, and Wilson leaned across his lap to point his too. "These things wash off pretty easily, right?" Wilson asked, and a ghost of a smile crossed Daniel's face.

"Usually, but not these. Joey makes these himself for things like this. They'll leave stains until judgment day." Wilson returned the smile.

"Search and destroy!" House exclaimed.

Daniel floored it down the dirt road, "Ready…"

House checked his weapon over once more, checked Wilson's over quickly, and then looked back out the window. "Aim…"

Both doctors pressed their drew a bead on the rapidly approaching house. "FIRE!!"

Wilson opened fire first, leaving a trail of red and black paint splatters on the side of the house. House aimed better, and busted out a window. Twenty seconds later, they were gone, leaving in their wake three hundred spent paintballs. All three front windows were shattered, paint stains covered the siding, the car, and the shed. It would be and enormous mess to clean up, and cost a fortune, but after what the man who lived here did to both of them, not to mention hitting his own nephew, it was well deserved. Not even Wilson's overused conscience would let him feel bad.

Both doctors collapsed against the back seat of the Crown Vic, exhausted. They hadn't slept in nearly 48 hours, hadn't eaten in nearly 20, and add to that the injuries inflicted by first the snake, then the hospital, then the irate father, then the irate father's friends at the jail. Wilson, content that they were safe and had avenged themselves, settled down into the seat, and soon found himself asleep with his head on House's shoulder.

House wanted to check Wilson's injuries over, but his friend just looked so comfortable he didn't want to move him. He was also bone-tired, and not sure he was capable of driving. Knowing that they needed to get out of town was one thing, being able to do it safely was another thing entirely. "Daniel?" he asked the man driving them. "I know we have to get away, but neither of us has really slept in two days. If either of us tries to drive, we'll end up like that four-wheeler kid. Is there a motel nearby that we could be safe in for a few hours?"

Daniel thought for a moment, deciding. "I'll take you back to our place. It's just me and Joey and Becca and Mama, though today Joey and Becca are at work. You guys can get some sleep, and some food, and we'll protect you. Jimmy looks like he's in bad shape. Should we take him to the hospital?"

House wanted nothing less than to take Wilson back to that hospital, but he would if he had to. "I'd prefer to check him out myself first. He'll be pissed if he wakes up there. They were a little rough on him last night."

"Dr. Ann?"

House smiled. "Yep."

Daniel drove them back to a small gray trailer on a huge lot, and House gently shook Wilson into something resembling wakefulness. He and Daniel guided the injured man inside and to the nearest bedroom. Easing him down on the full-sized bed, House took the time to examine him, first with a physician's critical eye, then as a friend. Daniel, as a cop and a paramedic's brother, helped as best he could. House couldn't help but shiver a little as Daniel pulled out a pocket knife eerily similar to the one the guard had and finish cutting the shirt off of him, slicing easily through the sleeves, fully exposing the abused body.

"Jimmy?" House asked, trying to get him slightly awake, and was relieved when he opened his eyes.

"What?" he asked irritably. "Wanna sleep!"

House smiled. "Okay, just in a minute. But I gotta check you out first. You wouldn't want me to take you back and let Dr. Ann do this, would you?"

Wilson shook his head quickly, and forced his eyes to stay open. "This is going to hurt, Wilson, I just need to know how bad. Ready?"

House waited until he nodded, then ran his hands down the damaged torso, applying slight pressure to swollen areas to check for fractures. His friend winced, but kept his mouth shut until House's probing fingers found the fractured rib, but it still only produced a broken whimper. "Hurt?" House asked. Wilson nodded with a wince, and House continued exploring the wounds. A horrific sunset of bruises covered his abdomen, and House had to put a little more pressure there to check for swelling that might indicate serious internal bleeding. By the time he was done, Wilson was squirming, and it took all his willpower not to smack House's hands away and curl into a protective ball. He knew if he demanded forcibly to be left alone, House would stop, but he would worry so much if he couldn't reassure himself that he wasn't in danger. Physical pain was bad, but worry over an injured friend was worse. Wilson knew the particular form of torture well.

Finally, House pronounced him beaten and bruised, but stable. Daniel left the two of them alone with instructions to get some sleep. Wilson turned around to lie on the bed properly, and House lay down beside him, taking special care not to touch him again or cause him any discomfort. "Want a vicodin?" He asked.

"Sure, I-" Wilson froze. "Wait, I think I…" He pulled two of them out of his pocket. "That's okay, I have these." He put them in his mouth and chewed them quickly.

"If you don't watch out, you'll turn out like me," House teased.

"No, I won't," replied Wilson seriously. "Because I won't be in pain forever. I'll heal." He shifted painfully onto his side to face House. "Did they hurt you?"

"Do you see any bruises?"

Wilson was skeptical. "Pull up your shirt."

House did as he was asked, knowing that what was done to him wouldn't leave visible marks. Once Wilson was satisfied, he fixed his shirt and they both rolled to their backs. "G'night, Greg."

Even though it was four in the afternoon, House replied quietly, "Goodnight, Jimmy." Thirty seconds later, Wilson was asleep. House was awake a little longer, guilt eating at him. He had promised Wilson a good time and some interesting stories. This was not what he had in mind! Finally, exhaustion won out, and he fell asleep with his hand resting on Wilson's arm.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: This a product of allergies, too much Benedryl, and too little inspiration, but it was also necessary to move the story along. Enjoy, and please review. Your reviews help shape the story! Nothing is set in stone yet.

House woke up violently, seizing his leg as the early-morning dose of pain shot through him. Letting out a strangled cry and fumbled for his pills. Confused as to why his night stand wasn't where it should be, he forced his eyes open. He realized he wasn't at home, and that was as far as he got before a pill was shoved into his hand. "Here," a voice dripping with concern told him, and he swallowed it, not caring if it was his vicodin, or rat poison as long as it made it stop. That blast from the taser must have done a little more damage than he thought.

Finally able to form coherent thought, he looked up at the frightened young man standing over him. Not Wilson. Who…? "Daniel?"

"Jimmy told me to give those to you as soon as you woke up. He said you wouldn't be at your best, but geez!"

House was too grateful for the vicodin to even roll his eyes at the kid. "Where is he? He still okay?"

Daniel nodded, and sensing that he was crowding his guest, he went back to the computer at the desk across the room. "He's fine. He woke up about thirty minutes ago, and went to help Mama with breakfast. Can he really cook, or is he just sucking up?"

House managed to sit up and swing both legs over the side of the bed and found his cane leaning where he had left it against the wall. "He can probably teach your Mama a thing or two."

When House finally made his way slowly to the kitchen, he heard a female voice, and then Wilson laugh. It was a laugh that House used to know well, full, unrestrained, not in the least self-conscious. It was the laugh of someone who didn't have a care in the world. Wilson just didn't laugh like that enough anymore. He stood outside the door for a moment, just listening to his friend laugh and joke with the older woman, and enjoyed the fact that his friend was thoroughly enjoying himself. Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind him, and spun swiftly to come face-to-face with Daniel. "She's like that," the young man whispered, instinctively knowing that this wasn't to be overheard. "She can make people feel at ease, even if she just met them."

House smiled, both at the statement, and at how easily the young man understood his thought. Usually, that would be a little scary, but somehow it seemed fitting. Then he went into the kitchen, unnoticed at first, watching Wilson and an older woman with her grey hair pulled up in a bun putter around the room. They worked seamlessly around each other, as if they had worked together for a decade, not like they had just met this morning. Wilson's hair was messy, and he had flour on his face and t-shirt. The blood was gone from his face, but the bruises were even more pronounced. Even the easy smile couldn't erase House's guilt for getting him into this mess.

Finally, he couldn't take being ignored, even inadvertently. "I always said you'll make a great wife someday," He said, finally getting Wilson's attention.

The pan of biscuits clattered down on the counter as Wilson jumped at the sound of his friend's voice. "Jesus, House! Where did you come from?"

The woman shook a rolling pin at him, and glared threateningly. "Don't be using the Lord's name in vain in my kitchen, boy!"

Wilson turned red and looked suitably contrite. "I'm sorry, Ms. Forester. It won't happen again."

"Yeah, Jimmy," House chimed in. "You're Jewish, you shouldn't say that anyway!"

"James, could you get the eggs out of the frigde?" Ms. Forester asked, seeming to instantly forget his transgression in favor of enjoying the extra pair of hands in the kitchen that her children rarely gave. "How does everybody want theirs?"

As she moved to scramble the eggs, she talked Wilson through making the gravy, one thing he had never cooked in his life. When it was all finished, the four of them sat down to the best breakfast the two doctors had ever had.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Ms. Forester walked them to Daniel's car, and hugged both of them in turn. "Thanks for breakfast, ma'am," said Wilson. "And for giving us a place to sleep last night."

'And for putting that relaxed smile on Wilson's face and making him look ten years younger,' House thought, but said, "Yeah, thank you."

Daniel and House got in the front seat, Wilson in the back as they drove back to the hospital where House had left his car almost thirty-six hours earlier. It was a silent ride, Daniel sorry to see his new friends go, House and Wilson still recovering from the last two days but feeling much better. Daniel had enjoyed the company of these two doctors, their wit, their intelligence, their loyalty to each other. They were good men. But they were also unpredictable, and that made them fun. Things were just too boring around here, and these two made it exciting for a few days, even if it did earn him a beating from Uncle Bobby. The bruises were healing, but he would get him back better. For himself and the men who had been treated so badly.

House was sitting contentedly, his belly full, pain down to a bearable level, guilt abated slightly by the good mood Wilson was in. Wilson, meanwhile, was as relaxed as the aches in his body would allow. There was no way he would let House see that he was hurting, because he didn't want to spoil the mood and because his friend went through every day in worse pain than this. But when House popped a vicodin and then handed one back to him, he knew he hadn't hid it as well as he thought.

They pulled up beside the Corvette in the hospital parking lot, and they all three got out. Joey's ambulance was parked at the ER door, and as they were saying their goodbyes, he strode up to them, holding something in his hand. "Here," he said, handing Wilson a syringe. "You'll need this, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. From…" He wasn't sure how to finish that statement. There was no tactful way to say 'because your cousin gave me an STD'.

Joey, sensing the source of the discomfort, finished for him. "From Stephanie and her…previous indiscretions."

Wilson nodded his thanks, even though he wasn't thrilled at the idea of getting another needle jabbed in him, but even less thrilled about whatever this girl was carrying. "What did you tell them?" he asked, eyeing the penicillin.

"Told them one of the guys at the station had caught something, and was too embarrassed to come in."

Wilson pocketed the syringe, knowing House would have to give it to him, but also that it could wait. "Thank you guys so much. I don't really know what to say."

"I do," said House. "You saved our asses, and we appreciate it. Anything we can do to make it up to you?"

"Just keep in touch." Daniel handed him a piece of paper. "Here's our phone number, address, and e-mail addresses. No a lot happens around here. Just drop us a line and tell us about some of the other crap you guys get into."

"No problem," House agreed.

Just then, Daniel's radio went off. A staticky voice said something unintelligible to House and Wilson, but the brothers seemed to understand it perfectly, and burst out laughing. "We gotta go," Joey said. "Uncle Bobby just caught someone climbing out of Teresa's window!" They ran back to their respective emergency vehicles, leaving House and Wilson to look at each other and grin.

"Poor bastard," Wilson muttered, getting into the car and settling his aching body into a comfortable position.

"Better him than us," House added, starting the ignition. "Let's go. We can still make it to Evansville before dark."

Wilson was confused. "I thought you wanted to see a patient in Kentucky?"

"No," said House. "I wanted to detour through Kentucky, then go see a patient. I just wanted to get some of the homemade booze they make around here. I got a dozen Mason jars of Joey's Napalm in the trunk. Cost me fifty bucks, but that stuff is worth it's weight in gold. Did you ever get around to trying it?"

"I honestly couldn't tell you," Wilson replied.

He hit the play button on the iPod, scanned through Chase's newest playlist until he found a song that summed up his friendship with House perfectly.

"You may be right, I may be crazy,

but it just might be a lunatic you're looking for.

Turn out the lights, don't try to save me.

You may be wrong, for all I know, but you may be right."

Wilson looked at House as Billy Joel went on with the song. His friend looked more alive than he had in a long time, and he realized that now that they were safe, they were actually having fun. And they were only two and a half days into their vacation. Still plenty of time for the riverboat gambling, getting drunk, checking on House's patient, even snorting cocaine off a homosexual man's stomach.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Note: Thanks so much to everyone who has been so faithful about reviewing! You guys make my day. And a happy paramedic is a good paramedic, so in a way, you guys are saving lives too!

They crossed the Indiana state line at dusk, and a few hours later, they were checked in to the Ramada. Wilson had packed their bags in, as well as the case of moonshine House had bought from Joey. Even with over 16 hours of sleep they had gotten at the Forester residence, eight hours of driving in top of the other outrages their bodies had been through had left them bone-tired.

House sprawled out on one of the beds and began flipping through the channels on the TV. "So," he asked Wilson. "You want to go out, or just stay here tonight and try to recover?"

Wilson shrugged. "Up to you…"

House frowned. "I asked you first."

"I really don't care. If you want to go out, we can. Or, if you want to stay in and get Pay-per-view porn, that works too."

The internal struggle was very evident on House's face. "Come on, Wilson! Don't make me say it!"

Wilson was genuinely confused. "Say what?"

House scowled. "The three most hated words in the English language!"

"Just say no?"

Giving up, House figured he may as well just bite the bullet. Looking Wilson in the eye, he asked him. "Are you okay?"

Wilson was honestly surprised. "Yeah, sure."

"How bad does it hurt?"

"You don't want to talk about this!"

"No," House replied. I don't, but if you want to be me, I have to be you. And that makes me the responsible one. You have a broken rib, there are colors on your stomach and chest that don't even have a name, and you can barely hold yourself up. Now, tell me. Scale of 1-10."

Wilson looked away. "5. When I don't breathe. So, going out or staying in?"

House winced, but let it go. "Staying in. I take you out partying once, things go to Hell. We'll just chill here tonight." Wilson smiled at the way House emphasized the word 'chill', almost sounding like a skater punk a quarter his age. "Put a couple jars of Joey's home brew in the little fridge, and I'll find something on TV."

When Wilson sat down on the other bed, he had split one jar of Napalm between him and House, and put two more in the mini-fridge. House had stopped channel-surfing, and sat the remote beside him on the bed as he sprawled bonelessly onto the bed wearing only his boxers and a t-shirt.. He pulled himself up to a sitting position against the headboard when Wilson handed him the paper cup. "You ever seen this?" he asked, gesturing toward the movie.

Wilson watched for a second, seeing Gary Sinese and Matt Dillon, then shrugged. "Don't know. What's it called?"

"Albino Alligator."

"What the hell does that mean?" He looked at the clear liquid in his cup, then bravely took a drink. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head, and he started choking. House watched him, concerned, until his face lost its alarming purple hue.

"That strong?" Wilson's watery eyes as he continued to sputter was answer enough. House watched him warily, then took a small drink from his own cup. As soon as it hit his lips, he remembered trying it before. One drink had been enough then, it was like liquid fire. Joey had shown brilliance when he named his concoction Napalm.

House handled the lava better than Wilson, who was totally unprepared, but not by a lot. He gagged, and his vision wavered, then he shook his head to clear it and took another drink. It went down easier the second time, and then the third. By the time he was on his fifth sip, it didn't burn any worse than a double-shot of Jack Daniels.

Wilson was watching him closely, as he had a tendency to do when House was doing something that was some strange combination of stupid and dangerous. The worry and curiosity warred in his eyes, and he grinned when House was still able to meet his eyes. "That strong," House answered. "C'mon, Jimmy, it gets easier."

Wilson smiled bravely, the reckless smile he had when House had given him a challenge he could actually take, and threw back a huge swallow. He choked, gagged, gasped for breath, but then was still smiling when he looked back up. "Takes more than that to count me out!" They both laughed, happy, relaxed with a good head start on being drunk.

"Really? I figured you'd wuss out after one drink."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. You're such a girl!" Wilson threw a pillow at him, which he caught and threw right back. "Case in point. Here we are, getting drunk and having a pillow fight. And people say I'm a bad influence on YOU! In an hour, we'll be sitting here watching reruns of Buffy and Angel and doing each other's nails!"

Wilson suddenly found his cup empty. His face was flushed from the alcohol, and he hadn't been this relaxed in days. He got the jars out of the freezer, handed one to House and kept one for himself. He wasn't usually such a cheap date, but this stuff was like a fifth of Jack in small cup. Sitting one down on the night table beside House, he plopped back down on his own bed. "Drinking game?"

House traded his empty cup for the full jar. "Which one?"

Wilson looked at the TV. "Ok, when someone curses, one drink. Someone flirts with a hostage, two drinks. Someone fires a gun, three drinks."

House shook his head. "Too complicated." He reached into his bag and pulled out a deck of cards. Cutting them into two piles, he said, "Low card drinks."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Wilson woke up first, and every pain he had felt the day before seemed to multiply by ten and settle into his head. Even the sound of the bedsprings felt like a marching band making its way through his cerebral cortex. Geez! He hadn't had a hangover like this in years. House was snoring loud enough to rattle the walls, and if he had the strength he would have dropped a pillow over the older man's face.

But it took all he had to roll out of bed. Once his feet hit the floor, he realized two things: First, he had fallen asleep (passed out, the little voice in his head said) with his head at the foot of the bed, and secondly that he was wearing jeans. Now, that was weird. Last thing he remembered he was right-side up in the bed, wearing his boxers and a t-shirt. In fact, he was pretty sure it was a different t-shirt. He and House were playing the drinking game, and then…well, it all got Hazy from there. He remembered something about the movie, a bar, and someone getting a tattoo. That was it, before waking up and feeling like a thermonuclear warhead had gone off in his head and was sending steady bursts of radiation to his stomach. And now he had to pee.

He carefully made his way to the bathroom, did his business, and had decided to lay back down when he made it back to bed. He had no reason to stay up. This was a vacation, although the way he felt now, he was going to need a vacation from this vacation before he was done. On the way back to bed, he passed the mirror, and while his mind was still fuzzy, there was no mistaking what he saw. Staring in horror at his reflection, he spun back toward the beds and pounced on his friend's bed.

"House!" he exclaimed, loud enough to make them both cringe as identical bolts of pain shot through their heads. When House opened his eyes, he almost laughed at the absurd sight in front of him, but some survival instinct told him to keep his mouth shut. Wilson spoke first. "At what point did we decide it was a good idea to dye my hair green?!"


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue. You couldn't get enough to justify the legal fees!

A/N: This chapter isn't quite what it was supposed to be, but I think I kept the OOCness to a minimum. Or at least, I hope! Please read and review.

"You don't remember?" House asked cautiously. As fanatical as Wilson was about his hair, this could easily lead to taking shots from a clock tower, as Wilson had once thought him capable.

"If I remembered, would I have shouted at you, even at the risk of shattering both our heads?! What the hell happened last night?"

House tried to clear the fog from his mind. Nothing had ever gotten him as drunk as a relatively small amount of that hillbilly kid's homemade hooch had. "I remember watching the movie. The one where Gary Sinese had that bar full of hostages. Then we were playing a game with cards…Do you owe me money?"

Wilson gave him a withering look. "Would I admit to that, even if I remembered?" He went back to the mirror to examine the bright green hue his hair had acquired. "What am I going to do?! I can't go back to work like this!"

House groaned as he rolled over to sit up, and was pleasantly surprised to find that his leg didn't hurt all that bad. Chalk one up to the Kentucky paramedic. That kid could make some good stuff! "Look, first off, take a shower. Maybe when we did that, we were in enough of our right minds to get the wash-out stuff. Then, if it doesn't, we'll figure that out next." He wished Wilson would hurry and leave the room. He was trying so hard not to laugh, he was almost unable to breathe.

Unfortunately, Wilson shed his t-shirt before he left the bedroom, and House had one more astounding sight to take in before Wilson disappeared from sight. "Oh, SHIT!"

Wilson, who had just turned the corner stuck his head back around when House spoke. "What? What now?"

House was so shocked that it took him a moment to catch his breath, and Wilson's expression got more and more frightened by the millisecond. Finally, he got enough air to speak. "A tattoo?! Under your shoulder blade! Shit, Jimmy, what got into us last night?!"

Wilson's eyes got so wide, House thought his eyeballs would just fall out of their sockets and roll under the bed. "WHAT?!?" Wilson exclaimed, making a good attempt at the physiologically impossible task of looking at his own back. House got out of the bed, noticing he was also in jeans, and his t-shirt was inside-out. He put a firm grip on Wilson's bare shoulders, effectively holding him still to inspect the swollen area, new to the pale flesh.

Wilson stopped squirming and trying to see. "What is it?" he asked with a groan.

House couldn't resist messing with him a little. "It's a heart. Who's Joyce?"

If possible, Wilson's eyes got even wider, and in a moment of clarity, he turned his back to the mirror. He sighed with something like relief. "It's a caduceus."

"Not so bad, huh?" he was still on alert for a meltdown, but he was surprised.

"No, not so bad. I was actually thinking about getting one, just never had the guts to do it. Now's as good a time as any."

House nodded, but took in the way his friend flinched when he gently prodded the tender flesh. "Hurt?" he asked.

Wilson nodded. "A little. Kinda feels like a really bad sunburn."

House grinned and shook his head. James Wilson with a tattoo, who would have thought? He patted Wilson's shoulder reassuringly. "Get in the shower. I'll be back, and we'll see what we can do about your hair."

Wilson looked embarrassed, but still a little worried. Somewhere between the green hair and the tattoo, he felt sure he had accomplished his goal of not being himself for a while. He nodded again, unsure of what to say, then shed his pants on the way to the shower. "Fix your shirt!" he called over his shoulder to House.

House turned his shirt right-side-out, and actually waited until he heard the shower running before he collapsed on the bed laughing.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The shower did nothing to help Wilson's hair, but it did a lot for his mind and body. He was less nauseated, the throbbing in his head had died down, and if it didn't look like he had celery growing from his head, he would be totally relaxed. He honestly wasn't that upset about the tattoo. It would make a nice souvenir from this adventure. The hair, however, was troubling. It would be sincerely embarrassing to explain, and how would he even begin to explain it to his patients? House would just make something up about making a deal with a patient that when her hair fell out, he would color his green, but he just couldn't bring himself to lie to dying people.

And of course, he was aware that he was an attractive man. House was always giving him a hard time about trying to look his best, but it was just a part of him. It was one of the few things within his control that made him feel good about himself. In fact, it was a little troubling how apathetic he actually was. If he was back home and this happened when he was sleeping over with House, he would have completely spazzed out, and made an emergency hair appointment. He would have given House hell over it until he was back to normal and then some. And speaking of which, where was House?

He sat sprawled out on the bed, flipping through channels until House returned, holding a bag from Walgreens .He pulled out a tub of Vasoline first. "Lose the shirt, Jimmy."

He looked at House strangely. "Why, Greg, no flowers, or even dinner first? What kind of lady do you think I am?"

House rolled his eyes. "It's for your tattoo, moron! You have to keep this on it until it heals, so it doesn't dry out. Hold still."

Wilson pulled off his fresh t-shirt and turned his back to House, allowing him to rub the soothing gel onto the irritated flesh. It actually felt good. Once that was done, House took two boxes out of the bag. "Which one looks more like your natural color?" He asked Wilson, holding up two boxes of hair dye.

"What?" asked Wilson. "We're going to dye it brown again?"

"Do you have a better idea? Sit down!"

House had dragged a chair to the middle of the floor and limped to the sink to mix the hair color. Wilson grabbed some towels from the bathroom, and stood behind him to watch. When he didn't look completely lost at what he was doing, Wilson asked him about it. "Why do you look like you've done this before?"

House smirked. "What? Fixed a bad dye job after a night of drinking? Could be because I have. Stacy did this a time or two. I had to fix it for her. Remember that time she became a redhead?"

"Uh, yeah, but that looked horrible!"

"Well, it was better than the yellow-orange that it covered. Now, hold still. I'll have you back to looking like a respectable doctor in no time."

Wilson pulled a towel around his shoulders, and tried to relax. How bad a job could House do, really? It wasn't like it could get any worse.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: This is the kind of thing that would happen if I owned House and Company. Obviously, I don't.

A/N: Hopefully, this is a little more IC than I have been. Please read and review!

It definitely felt weird to have House touching him like this. For a person who so adamantly avoided human contact, he was surprisingly gently as he worked the foul-smelling liquid through Wilson's hair. It was almost relaxing, and he allowed his eyes to flutter closed. House noticed, and smirked. It was about half funny, and half sad. This was as relaxed as he had been in a long time.

Content that he had cover his friend's hair as well as he could, he shook him roughly on the shoulder. "Nothing to do now but wait. Want a drink?" He asked mischievously. Wilson shook his head violently, letting fly a small shower of brown-black droplets like a puppy shaking its self dry.

"God, no!" he said. "I'm never drinking again!"

House broke into a genuine grin. "So, want a drink?"

Wilson looked nervously in the mirror, waiting for the goop to make his hair brown again. "I think I'm going to need one."

House poured him a small cup of Napalm, and checked his watch. "Fifteen more minutes."

Eyeing the cup, Wilson looked at him. "None for you?"

He shook his head. "Nope. I have to drive. You just have to relax, look like a person again, and come along for the ride."

Wilson wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. "We're going somewhere?"

House gave him a look that screamed 'Well, DUH!'. "Have you forgotten for the moment the purpose of this…House call? We came here to check up on a former patient of mine."

"So there really is a patient? I thought you were making it up to justify this field trip trip to Cuddy."

"Actually, I didn't mention the patient to Cuddy."

"Oh," said Wilson. He wasn't sure what to make of it. House going to visit a patient, and not demanding credit for it from the boss? What the hell…? "So does the patient have a name, or is it just like Coma Guy? What is it, Ebola Boy?"

"HER name is Amber."

"Oh, HER! Now, why didn't I see that coming?"

"What? You think I'm here out of anything less than doctorly concern? Hey, I'm the picture of the Hippocritical Oath!"

"Don't you mean Hippocratic Oath?"

House shrugged. "You swear what you want, I'll swear what I want."

Wilson couldn't help but laugh. "Time's up." He headed back to the shower.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Wilson ran his hand through his now purplish-black hair and sighed. House looked over at him and rolled his eyes, exasperated. "Look, I already said I'm sorry. What more do you want?"

"I want to not look like a fifteen-year-old Goth! I go back to work looking like this, parents are going to think I'm going to drain their kid's blood!"

House had to grin, even though it was not really that funny a statement. Wilson did look like a very passible vampire. That was why House couldn't resist handing him a black t-shirt and dark jeans to wear. Wilson had obediently put them on, not even realizing how it looked with his now-black hair and pale skin, especially with the bruise on his cheek.

"You'll fit right in with your cancer kids, then!" He frowned, and House realized that this may not be the time for being an ass. "Look, it's not that bad. If they're new patients, you could even pass it off as natural. As for the others, you can tell them that-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know!" Wilson cut him off. "Tell them that I made a deal with a kid that when he lost his hair, I dye mine an odd color!"

House raised an eyebrow. "Well, I was going to say tell them that your big brother did it to you while you were asleep, but if you like that one…" They pulled up to a large cinderblock building. "Here we are."

They got out of the car. Wilson followed closely behind House, and noticed the sign as they went around the building. "Your 'patient' owns a spa?" This had taken an interesting turn.

House didn't answer, just led them inside and up to a desk. "I'm Dr. Greg House. I need to speak to Amber on a matter of medical urgency."

The young secretary hurried off in search of her boss, and House pointed to a chair. "Sit down and stay put. I'll be right back."

Confused, Wilson did as instructed, and watched as House met a woman on the far side of the lobby. The woman, whom he assumed was Amber, was an absolute knock-out. Approximately 5'6", with long honey-blonde hair and a stunning figure, it didn't surprise him at all that House had driven across several states to see this girl again. What did surprise him was when House motioned for him to join them. He got up quickly, and crossed the room to stand beside House.

"Amber, this is Jimmy. Jimmy, Amber. So, you think you can help him? You're the best."

"I don't know," she said with a smile. "He looks awful tense. I'll see what I can do."

"Help me?" He asked, immediately on the defensive. What had House told her?!

"Yeah. She specializes in problems like yours."

"Like mine?" He was still lost.

"You know. Overstressed. Burnt-out. Exhausted. She'll help you relax. Remember when I was detoxing, and you got me that masseuse? Now I'm returning the favor."

Wilson was touched. House really had appreciated that! "Well, thank you." He turned to Amber. "And thank you."

She smiled, amused. "Not a problem. Anything for the doctor who saved my life. I told him I owed him one. Just come with me." She took his hand as she led him around the corner. House waved cheerily as they disappeared.

"Hey, take it easy on his, he's taken a beating the last few days!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You told me she was a masseuse!" Wilson was sprawled flat on the hotel bed, his t-shirt even more rumpled, a tear up the left leg of his boxers, his hair very messy.

"No, I said I was returning the favor. I never said she was a masseuse. I said she was the best. I never said what she was best at. Was I wrong?"

Wilson smiled. "She was amazing! Some of the things she did have to be illegal!"

"Uh, Jimmy, she a hooker. ALL the things she did were illegal!"

He shrugged. "Yeah, well…"

"So, how do you feel?"

Wilson was already halfway into a nap. The woman House had brought him to had worked miracles on his aching and abused body, and for the moment, at least, all the pain was gone. He felt as alive as he ever had. And way more exhausted than he had any right. "Better. Much better." He pulled the blanket up over him and was out cold.

House smiled at his friend. Wilson needed this so badly. Just as long as certain parts of the story never got back to the hospital. He had a reputation to maintain. Couldn't have people thinking he was a good guy. But then, this was Wilson. The responsibility the younger man felt towards him was well known. What was less known was that not only did House have no one but Wilson, Wilson had no one but House. No one could judge him for his responsibility to him. But then, if people thought he had a good side, they might all turn into Cameron…God, that was a scary thought!


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: Totally not mine. Out of cute and creative ways to say it.

"Hey, Wilson, time to get up!" House shouted as he was getting out of the shower. Holding the wall with one hand and the towel he was using to dry his hair in the other. As he pulled on his underwear, he noticed that the other man hadn't moved. Hadn't so much as turned over. He was still sprawled out like he had been dropped there from a height and was too injured to move. That thought brought a shudder through House. He had to be more selective about what he let into his mind.

Slipping on his jeans, he hobbled over to the second bed. Gently shaking the younger man's shoulder, he said more quietly, "Come on, Jimmy. Wakey-wakey…"

Wilson mumbled something incoherent and turned over on his side, curling into a very tight ball. House decided to let him sleep until he was ready to go. It bought him a few minutes, anyway. When he had gotten his shirt on, brushed his teeth, and ran his fingers through his hair, he sat down on the bed beside Wilson and popped a vicodin. Once more, he shook his friend's shoulder. "Wake up, Jimmy. It's getting late. We gotta be there by seven or we'll miss the first deal." No response. House cupped both hands around his mouth to both amplify and distort his voice. "Code blue, fifth floor! Code blue, fifth floor!"

Wilson sat up so quickly that he got twisted in the sheet and fell off the bed. He blinked his eyes, surprised, then it changed to annoyance. "What the Hell, House? There's not an easier way to wake me up than sending ME into cardiac arrest?!"

House smirked. "Easier, maybe. More fun, definitely. But I figured you'd be pissed if I put your hand in warm water again."

Wilson tried to continue to look stern, but just couldn't keep it up. His face cracked into a restrained grin, then finally a full smile. "Okay, I'm up. Now what?"

"Well, most of the normal world would say now is the time to haul your sorry ass up off the floor, but as you probably know that, I'm gonna say it's time for us to get to the poker game."

Wilson got to his feet, stumbling once, and House felt a disturbing wave of alarm rush through him as he barely kept himself from reaching out to steady him. He told himself that it was only because Wilson seemed so vulnerable in that moment, so young, innocent, and not quite awake. That led to The even more disturbing thought that Wilson felt like that every time he stumbled, which was quickly squelched by reminding himself that he NEVER looked that vulnerable. EVER.

"Earth to House? Anybody home?"

"Yeah…huh?"

"I said, what poker game?"

"Oh," said House, quickly recovering from being caught daydreaming. "Remember, I told you about the riverboat gambling thing? Poker tourney tonight. Five hundred gets you in."

Wilson pulled on one of the rattiest t-shirts House had packed, a grey one with a stick figure falling down the stairs and a caption that said in childish scrawl 'I think I brained my damage'. "Let's rock and roll," he said.

House rolled his eyes. "That shirt's too appropriate. Aren't you forgetting something?"

Wilson was almost awake now, and realized his error. "Uh…yeah. Right. I need pants, don't I?"

"Well, I'm sure the ladies out there wouldn't mind, but I'm not sure I want to be out there with you. Just imagine the rumors!" He put his hands to his face in a mock expression of horror as Wilson dug through the suitcase for another clean pair of jeans.

"Yeah, like you care about rumors!" Wilson said, shaking his head. "Okay, ready now." He took one last look at his hair in the mirror. He needed to try to fix it or something, but as bad as the color was, he just couldn't find a reason to mess with it.

House, still feeling guilty about his hair, pulled a blue-grey cap from his bag and tossed it to him. Wilson looked at it briefly, taking in the playing cards with skulls on them and the words 'No Limit', and smiled. He put it on, adjusted it, then looked back in the mirror and smiled. He looked nothing like the boy-wonder oncologist, even less like St. Jimmy. "Cool," he said.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I'll call your twenty-five," said Wilson, staring intently at the four-hundred pound man dressed like Waylon Jennings sitting across from him. "And raise you fifty. I'm all in" He scooted the chips across the table into the pot.

The cowboy looked at his cards, then at the little pip-squeak of a man who was left in the game with him. He couldn't believe it. This scrawny little guy and his crippled old buddy show up in his town, beat all his buddies out of the game, and now he was still raising? At least the cripple had the good sense to lose. Too bad his little friend wasn't as smart. Oh, well. The two hearts in his hand and two on the board said he had a good chance. There were also two aces up. This guy probably has a third ace, and thinks he's hot shit. "Call. All in too" he said.

House took a moment to watch Wilson from the sidelines. He hadn't been allowed to stay beside him, had to leave the table when he lost out, but it was almost more interesting watching from here. He had never seen Wilson play like this. Carelessly, without thinking every possibility through. He wasn't concerned with winning, just having fun. He wasn't taking any of it seriously. And he was absolutely kicking ass!

He saw the slight grin on the cowboy's face as the third heart fell on the table, and he jumped up in excitement, dropping his cards down.

House saw the look cross Wilson's face, and he knew he had won. He also knew he was going to say something that would get him in trouble. "No, Jimmy, don't," he muttered under his breath. "Just be you right now. Don't try to be me."

If they were with the X-men, it might have helped. Unfortunately, Wilson had neither ESP or super-hearing, and House's sarcasm began leaking out of Wilson's mouth. "Wow, a flush. Not a bad hand. Not bad at all. Even worth going all in over."

"Yeah," said the cowboy arrogantly. "Beats the hell out of your three aces!"

"Yup," Wilson quipped. "Except when you add the forth one." He dropped the cards on the table, both aces face up, matching the two in the flop.

House saw the look on the cowboy's face and began making his way to the table again. The two young security boys stopped him. "You can't go in there until the game is over."

"What are you, blind or stupid? The game is over. The Jersey Kid won." The taller of the two boys looked confused, and House whacked him in the shin with his cane as he shoved past. He thought briefly that if there was any trouble, these two boys weren't exactly reassuring as the police force. This thought came only a split-second before a large fist connected with Wilson's already abused midsection, simultaneously knocking the wind out of him and knocking him back into the crowd.

House leaped (so to speak) into action, and swung his cane at the cowboy's head. The blow connected solidly, hard enough to hurt his hand, but the cowboy merely turned to him unfazed. He picked House up easily by the front of his shirt and carried him over to where Wilson was getting to his feet. The crowd, already riled by the fact that these two out-of-towners had beaten the local boys, took to the violence easily, and three of them quickly subdued the security guards.

"Put him down!" Wilson demanded, still gasping for breath as he stood to face his attacker and get House out of the situation.

House struggled in the grip. The cowboy was over 6'7", and held him easily off the ground, as he simply reached out and picked Wilson up in the same manner. The crowd cheered happily as he carried both his captives to the side of the boat. "You boys swim?" he asked almost conversationally.

Wilson was suddenly terrified. He could swim, but… "Please, I can but I don't know if he can, look, I know you're mad and if you'll just put us down I'm sure we can work this out and-"

Next thing he knew, he was flying through the air. Remembering the summers spent during his teen years trying to impress the girls on the high dive, he tucked his head and pulled his knees to his chest. Hitting the water from the second story of the boat still wouldn't be pleasant, but it would be better than landing flat on his back, or something equally painful. He barely heard House cry out as he hit the water half a second before he hit as well.

The impact jarred him, but he surfaced almost immediately and treaded water. "House!" he screamed, scanning the surrounding area for his friend. Finally, he saw him, struggling to keep above the water a few yards away. Swift, strong strokes pulled him to his panicking friend's side.

"Wilson!" He gasped breathlessly, more afraid than Wilson had ever seen him. "I don't think I can swim! My leg!"

Knowing the statistics about people trying to rescue drowning people, he shoved that out of his mind. "Grab on!" he shouted over the splashing. When he was close enough, House wrapped his arms around Wilson's chest and clung on as the younger man slowly made their way toward the shore.

Wilson dragged himself and House onto the shore, both gasping for breath. House, upon settling onto the shore, immediately curled up into a ball in pain. Between the ice cold water and the exertion and tension on his leg from trying not to drown, daggers of pain shot through everything from his abdomen and his right ankle. He wasn't sure he could even get up. Wilson was at his side instantly, rubbing the angry, cramping muscle, trying to undo the knots the freezing water had put in it.

Anger replaced the fear. He wanted to get a hold of the cowboy and do things to him a doctor shouldn't even think about. He would start with removing each of his freakishly long limbs one by one. With a butter knife. Or the backside of a scalpel. House's pained whimpers tore through him like bullets, and it was only worse because he knew what he was doing was hurting him, but that it would make it better quicker. "It's okay, it'll go away, it always does, I'm sorry, so sorry…"

He kept mumbling words and nonsense syllables until House finally began to relax. Dripping wet on the riverbank, and suddenly exhausted from the adrenaline crash, they just laid there, side by side, breathing harshly, House occasionally coughing up some of the water he took in, Wilson occasionally allowing himself to gasp for the breath he had lost getting both of them to shore.

"You want to call the police?" He gasped to House.

"Hell no!" House replied raggedly. "First of all, that was the Ohio river was just swam through. That means we're back in Kentucky. I've had all I can take of the Kentucky cops. Let's just find a way back to the hotel.

Wilson helped House to his feet, and they hobbled toward the road. House was still in pain, but it wasn't as bad as it had been a few minutes ago. They stood on the side of the road, waiting for a car to come by. Finally, Wilson broke the silence. "House, this has been an interesting vacation. I really appreciate you doing this. It's been a real adventure, and I've had a great time-"

"With the exception of being shot at, locked up, beat up, dyeing your hair, and getting thrown off a riverboat? Why do I sense a 'but' here?"

"But I don't think I can take much more. Can we go home now?"


	15. Chapter 15

Sorry this has taken so long. This has been the worst weekend in the history of EMS, and I've had about six hours of sleep since Thursday. I apologize for any glaring errors, and I can't drive a standard myself, so please overlook anything I may have gotten wrong. Please read and review, if you're not too mad at me for keeping you waiting this long. Actually, if you are, review and let me know that too. I'm going to shut up now and let you read the story...

By the time they got back to the car, Wilson was all but carrying House. He helped him limp toward the passenger side, to which House protested loudly. "Where do you think I'm going? It's hard to drive from over here!"

Wilson looked at him, surprised. "You're planning on driving? As bad as you're hurting?" 'Shit!' he thought, realizing that was the totally wrong thing to say to the stubborn doctor. He quickly covered, though. "C'mon! I've never gotten to drive this thing!"

House was torn. He really didn't want to relinquish the one control that he had kept from Wilson, the one thing he hadn't shared. He also didn't want to admit to that much pain, to admit that Wilson was right, to be chauffeured around like a common cripple. But he knew Wilson had wanted to drive the 'vette for a long time, and the pain from the cold, standing so long trying to hitchhike, then cramming his leg into the miniscule front seat of the Chevette that had finally stopped to help them was making it's own not inconsiderable argument. He shrugged. "Okay. Gas is on the far right, brake in the middle, clutch on the far left. Please don't kill us."

Wilson rolled his eyes. "I have driven a stick before!"

"Does Chase know that? I'll tell him maybe he has a shot then…"

Wilson dropped his head to hide the smirk. He had walked right into that one. "Shut up and put your seatbelt on!" The look of fear that crossed House's face was priceless.

The gears ground loudly as Wilson tried to get them out of the parking lot, and his passenger's eyebrows shot up into the receding hairline. "Uh…you said before…How long ago?"

Wilson smiled innocently. "Well, my first car was a standard shift. Nice old Camaro…of course, I only had it about six months…"

House was nearly panicking now, wondering just what he had been thinking letting anyone else drive his precious car. "So twenty-two years ago, you drove a stick for about six months, then what? Crashed it? Shredded the transmission?" He shook his head. "Never mind, I don't want to know!"

Though he could have told his friend that his father had sold the car after an outrageous speeding ticket, could have put him out of his misery, but he had to admit, this was kinda fun. He could make it look like he didn't know what he was doing without actually damaging the car, and it was fun to make House squirm like this sometimes. He was often the victim of this particular brand of torment, and it was great to have an opportunity to give some of it back. And the part of him that was still Saint Jimmy (the part that was getting buried deeper and deeper with each passing minute) could justify this teasing by saying that the worry was taking his mind off the physical pain of his leg.

Finally (but only after House had found his vicodin and swallowed two), he finally relented and fell into a normal rhythm of driving and allowed his unwilling passenger to relax the white-knuckled grip on the door handle. When House realized Wilson had been playing him, he smiled. "Nice. Scare the crap out of the cripple. I've taught you well."

Wilson smiled. "I'm hungry. You hungry?"

House shrugged. "I could go for something greasy with no nutritional value."

"Pizza?"

"Where are you going to find pizza at two a.m.?"

Wilson whipped the car into the closest 7-11. "Here's my best guess."

"You actually eat gas station pizza? I thought you had standards!"

Wilson shrugged. "Like you said, it's two a.m. and we're in a strange town. Any better ideas? Besides, I'm starving. When was the last time I ate anything? I don't remember."

House cringed inwardly. He really sucked at the whole taking care of people thing. "Uh…this morning…yesterday morning at breakfast. In that case, greasy pizza that's been sitting there for at least six hours at least is perfect."

They got out of the car, and as usual, Wilson fell into step perfectly with the broken stride of his friend. "You buying this time?" he asked, joking.

"What, and damage your fragile sense of usefulness? What kind of friend do you think I am?"

Wilson shook his head with a smile. "Of course. Whatever was I thinking?"

He picked up a bag of Doritos and a bottle of water, though for a second and grabbed a King-sized Twix bar too, then met House at the pizza warmer. It did look decidedly unappetizing, but at the moment he was hungry enough to gnaw off House's damaged leg. He chose one that could arguably be pepperoni. "Possibly pepperoni or supposedly sausage?"

"I'll go with the mutilated goat, please," House replied.

Wilson grinned and started to hand House the other pepperoni slice, then realized that while balancing the Jolt cola and six pack of Reese's cups, it would be difficult to carry that as well. "You're actually getting the equivalent of your first MI and drinking WATER with it?" House asked, eyeing Wilson's dinner. "Here," he said, picking up four Hershey's chocolate cookies. "Get these too, they're really good."

They made their way to the front of the store. A teenage kid was sitting behind the counter reading a Maxim magazine. He stood up when they put their bounty down at the checkout. "You guys having a good night?" He asked conversationally, scanning their items.

House fought back a smile. "You wouldn't believe us if we told you."

The kid looked at him strangely. "Well, if not, I hope it gets better," he replied, unsure what to make of the strange reply.

"Oh, I don't think that's going to happen," replied a voice from behind them. "Everybody freeze, give me the cash and nobody gets hurt!"


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Thanks to everyone for the reviews! Keep 'em coming! Some of the stuff that happens in here are medical oddities rather than the norm, but this is the way I've seen it happen. Enjoy, and as alway, please review!

House turned slowly around to see a young man in a worn Chicago Bulls cap that had to date back to Michael Jordan's rookie year, a bandana tied around his face in clichéd outlaw style, a black sweatshirt and faded jeans. Of course, all this was the second thing he noticed. The first was the revolver pointed directly at Wilson's chest. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. What was there to say? 'Sorry, I left my wallet in the car? Geez! After all they had been through the last four days, why was he surprised to find them in the middle of an armed robbery?

The gunman nudged Wilson in the stomach with the gun and pointed to the clerk. "Tell him to empty the register. Put the money in a paper bag, and no funny stuff!"

Wilson looked like every drop of blood had drained from his face. Sweat poured from his face, and his hair was suddenly dripping wet. However, there wasn't a hint of fear in his voice when he spoke. "'No funny stuff'? You have got to be kidding! That's the lamest pile of crap I've ever heard!"

House drew in a sharp breath. What the hell was he doing?! This guy had a gun! "Jimmy…"

The gunman was equally thrown. "Look, buddy, I don't know what you're thinking, but you're in no position to comment. I have the gun, I tell you to shut up, you shut up!"

"Actually, you told me to talk, I just didn't like the line I was given."

The clerk was terrified, shaking, near immobile. Rather than emptying the register, he watched the exchange, ready to duck at a moment's notice. House managed to catch Wilson's eye, hoping to get a hint of the plan, a second of reassurance, or anything, but was completely taken aback at what he saw. Jimmy wasn't in there. In no way, shape or form. A sheen of madness covered the brown eyes he knew so well, and by looking at them alone, he would never identified them as his friend's. Had he cracked so completely under the stress? House wouldn't have thought so, but…

The gunman tried once more to gain control of the situation. "Now listen-!" he began, but was cut off when Wilson snatched House's cane out of his hands and swung it with home run strength. It hit the gunman's wrist, slinging the gun from his grip and sending it skittering into a corner behind a rack of Hostess cupcakes. Not satisfied with disarming their attacker, Wilson continued to swing the cane wildly, actually connecting with every third swing. One caught him in the right temple, and sent him to the ground.

Wilson jumped on top of him and started pounding him with his fists. "You think that scared me?" he snarled in a voice that House also wouldn't have connected with the normally calm, articulate oncologist. "That's not the first gun pulled on me this week! Or even the biggest! Or second biggest!"

"I'm sorry, man!" The attacker pleaded, blood pouring from his nose and mouth. "Let me go! Call the cops! Anything, just get off of me!" The false bravado the gun provided slipped away with his grip on it, revealing just a scared teenager. "I wasn't really going to hurt nobody!"

"Wasn't really going to hurt nobody" Wilson mimicked viciously. "You were going to kill me!" He grabbed his victim by the shoulders and slammed his head into the tile floor one more time, then jerked him roughly to his feet. "You have three seconds to get out of here, before I put you in the morgue!" The kid wasted no time scrambling out the door.

House was simply standing there, not even leaning against anything, frozen in place. Wilson turned back to look at him, and House was shaken by what he saw. The younger man was white as a ghost. Literally, House had seen bodies in the place Wilson threatened their attacker with that had a healthier color than he did at the moment. His hair, his shirt, and his pants were soaked with sweat, and it ran in rivers down his face. "Jimmy, are you okay?"

Wilson simply stared at him for a moment, as if not recognizing him. Finally, he spoke, but it wasn't the reassurance House had hoped for. "You gave him money," he stated simply, sounding horribly and painfully betrayed.

The statement made little sense, as Wilson had seen that the young man had gotten no money, but the tone made even less sense. Even if House had given the man the money he demanded, it would be no cause for Wilson to sound so utterly hurt. "No," House told him slowly. "My wallet's in the car, remember? You were buying, like always."

"Like always? Is that why you paid him to kill me? Is that what this whole trip has been about? You wanting me dead? Why go to all this trouble when all you had to do was poison my coffee back home? Is it all some kind of game? Why, House, why?" He took a step toward his friend, unfathomable hurt warring with dangerous, unpredictable anger warring for dominance on his twisted features. House wasn't sure what he was going to do when he got to him, but he was sure it wouldn't be pleasant.

House was amazed at how quickly he accepted the fact that this was JIMMY WILSON coming at him in a rage, the fact that Wilson thought he was trying to kill him, and the fact that Wilson had just attacked a man with a gun and saved all their lives. None of it added up, and he attributed it to what he called Stephen King Syndrome. In every Stephen King novel, hundreds of pages are cut and countless lives are saved by the characters simply accepting that there were vampires, or that a writer's pen name had come to stalk them, or that the devil was among them, rather than dismissing it as impossible. This also saved House, for at that moment Wilson drew back a fist, still slick with the gunman's blood, and punched for all he was worth at House.

Unable to completely avoid the blow, it hurt a lot less skirting off his temple than it would have shattering his eye socket. "What's wrong with him?" the terrified clerk asked. "Is he flipping out?"

House didn't know. "What the hell, Jimmy? You know I don't want to hurt you! Are you out of your fucking mind?!"

"Yeah," echoed the clerk. "Is he out of his fucking mind?"

It appeared that he was, indeed, out of his mind, and he shoved House against the wall. Putting his hands on Wilson's chest to try to push him away, his elbow hit the bottle of soda he had just bought, and he remembered why they were there in the first place. "Oh, shit…" he muttered. "Jimmy, you haven't eaten anything in almost two day, have you? Did you drink anything? Pop? Juice?"

"Water," Wilson replied, calmer, but still holding House by the throat. "Why, did you poison it too?"

"Just let me go, and we'll talk. Tell you what, drink this soda, give it two minutes, then you can punch me all you want. I won't fight to get away, just close my eyes and take whatever you want to do to me. All you have to do is drink this!"

Wilson looked back at him fiercely. "You poisoned it, too, didn't you?"

"Is he drunk?" The clerk asked. "I'm calling the cops!"

"No!" said House. "He's sick. I'm a doctor. I'll handle this. Just hide!" The kid wasted no time complying, and House focused back on Wilson. "Jimmy, you're a doctor. Somewhere, you know why you feel this way. You haven't eaten, you've had a lot of alcohol this week, Jesse James a few minutes ago set your endocrine system into overdrive. You're cold, clammy, pale, paranoid. Fifty bucks says your blood sugar is below 40. You're not flipping out, you're hypoglycemic!"

Wilson stumbled a little. "Not diabetic…"

"Don't have to be, and when you're thinking clearly, you'll remember that. Just drink this and you'll feel better."

Wilson looked at him warily, but there was a hint of Jimmy Wilson in his eyes that wasn't there before. He took the bottle, and looked at the label. "It's okay?" he asked pitifully, then crumpled roughly to the floor.

House looked at him in horror for a second. "Call an ambulance!" he called to the traumatized clerk.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Thanks to all you who reviewed! Not much action here, just a little fun angst. Enjoy.

Wilson woke up slowly, first aware of the headache, then the steady beeping of the heart monitor. It did nothing for his head, and the bright lights were seeping the thin skin of his eyelids. He raised his arm to cover his eyes, but the motion was stopped by something tugging on his wrist. He quickly tried the other, with the same result. His eyes flew open as he struggled to free himself. With no idea why he would be in four-point restraints, he fought frantically against his bonds. Panic flooded his mind.

Suddenly a hand appeared on his shoulder, trying to be reassuring. "Easy, Jimmy. It's okay. Just relax."

"House!" he breathed, relief chasing away the panic. His best friend was here. He wouldn't let anyone hurt him. "House, I'm tied up. Let me go!"

"Just a minute, okay? Just answer a few questions for me, okay? Do you know where you are?"

His eyes scanned the room, finally meeting his friend's eyes. "House, please! This isn't funny! Untie me! What's going on?" His voice broke into something just short of a whimper. "Please! House, what's going on?" He searched the pained blue eyes for something like reassurance, but there was something odd about them. "I'm scared."

"Its okay, Jimmy, just trust me, okay. Answer one question, and I'll untie you. I have to know you're okay first."

He continued to struggle, trembling in fear at his helplessness. "I'm fine! I'll tell you anything, just let me go!"

House would have sworn he didn't have a heart anymore, but it broke at that. "Okay, Jimmy." He began unlacing the leather straps on the terrified doctor's wrists. "Just don't hit me again, okay?"

"Hit you? Why would I hit you? Did I hit you? What happened? Where am I and why am I hear?" He sat up as House moved to his other side. His left hand migrated over to help speed up the process, but House gently moved it away. "I got it. You just try to calm down. No way the doctor will release you if you're still tachycardic."

Wilson looked up at the heart monitor, and was a little surprised to find it was reading at over 130 beats per minute. He grinned sheepishly. "I was scared. I-I just can't handle being trapped like that. Why was I tied up?" He strained to remember, but it was all fuzzy after getting in the Chevette on the river bank. House looked decidedly uncomfortable, and suddenly Wilson realized what was odd about House's eyes. The right one was almost blood red, with bruising around the far side. "Did I do that to your face? Why would I hit you?" He was seriously dismayed at the gap in his memory. "Christ! What did I do?! Was I drunk again?"

House sat back down after untying Wilson's feet and put a calm hand on his shoulder. "First of all, it's okay. No, you weren't drunk. Your blood sugar bottomed out, and you got a little crazy. On the upside, you saved us and a teenaged clerk from a robber."

"And on the downside, I busted a blood vessel in your eye. Anything else?"

House shrugged. "Talked a little crazy. Traumatized the clerk. Oh, yeah, and beat the shit out of the guy trying to rob the 7-11."

"What?!"

A smile cracked through on House's face. "Yeah, it was an interesting night."

"What did I say? Why did I hit you?"

"You thought I was trying to kill you. Then you passed out."

Wilson shook his head. "I'm so completely sorry! I don't know how I could-"

House held up a hand, effectively cutting him off. "Don't! You couldn't help it. Here I am, supposedly taking care of you, and I let you go into a hypoglycemic rage, then a hypoglycemic coma! You could have died! I think at the very least I deserved a busted blood vessel and a black eye."

"I was in a hypoglycemic coma?!"

"Yeah," House confirmed. "They gave you an amp of D50 on the way here, and it just woke you up enough to make you spaz out again. You kicked the doctors, put up quite a fight. That's why you were restrained."

"And why you were so reluctant to untie me." It wasn't a question, just an attempt to clear the guilt from his friend's face. "I understand. I'd have done the same." It didn't work. "But I'm okay now?"

House picked up the glucometer the nurse had left on the counter and set it up. He gently cleaned the tip of Wilson's finger with an alcohol prep and poised the tiny needle above it. "Ready?" Wilson nodded. He hated this part. "Okay, on three. One…Two." He quickly poked the lancet into Wilson's fingertip before "two" was out of his mouth.

A drop of blood welled up, and he put the test strip on it. When he was finished, Wilson popped his finger in his mouth. "You said on three," he pouted.

House smacked his hand away from his mouth. "Stop that! You're a doctor, for crying out loud. You know better than that!" He cleaned the wound again with the alcohol prep and stuck a band-aid on it. "There you go, ya baby!" His words were hateful, but he was smiling. Wilson responded to stress by taking care of the stress, then reverting to a six-year-old.

The glucometer beeped, and House held it up for Wilson to see. 148. Perfectly normal, except still rather low for someone who had received two amps of D50. It should have been sky high.

"Good," said Wilson. "It's normal. Can we go now?"

"The doctor wants to check you over again in a little bit and probably do an EEG to rule out brain damage."

Wilson made a face. "He wants to, or you badgered him into doing it?"

"You know it's indicated!"

"You know it's unnecessary!"

"I'm not brain damaged. Come on, House. Let's go. Please?" He made that pitiful face again, and House knew Wilson would get his way. He could never refuse Wilson anything.

"Okay. But," he replied, holding up a hand to cut him off. "But our first stop is the closest IHOP, and you're eating at least three pancakes with a ton of syrup, and never scaring me like that again."

Wilson perked up. "Chocolate chip pancakes?"

House nodded. "Even better."

Wilson expertly removed his IV, and pressed on it with the corner of his gown to stop the bleeding. "You buying this time?"

Smiling, House replied, "Sure, even though you cheated your way out of buying last time." Wilson looked confused, and House remembered that he didn't remember that conversation. "Never mind. And if you ask me to explain, YOU'RE buying!


	18. Chapter 18

Note: I will try to update again this weekend, but there probably won't be another update later in the week. I have to go to Chicago, because my grandma is having surgey for liver cancer. One of the many times I wish Dr. Wilson was real, but I don't need him to tell me the odds. So, anyone out there who prays, please say a prayer for her.

Wilson had been hungry a few hours ago when he had stopped at the 7-11 on autopilot, and he was absolutely STARVING now. He could hardly sit still while he waited for the waitress to bring their pancakes. Fiddling with the bottle of blueberry syrup, he still felt weak and shaky from his earlier brush(es) with disaster. He didn't remember the robbery, but he saw the bruises on his knuckles. House had carefully scrubbed the blood from the abused joints when they snuck out of his room. As easy as he had tried to be, it had still hurt. Wilson hadn't made a sound, though. He wasn't sure he deserved the right to whine about the pain. Maybe he did stop a robber, but one of those bruises was a reminder of what he had done to House. It was the right eye, so it had to have been his left hand. He stared at the offending appendage, wondering which discolored, swollen mark had been caused by him attacking his best friend. It could have been any of them. Always assuming he had only hit him once. He couldn't remember, and wasn't sure House would have told him the truth. He probably wouldn't have told him at all, if it wasn't obvious.

"Anyway," House continued, "So a rather bad day ended with me and Chase playing 'the priest and the alter boy' in the oncology lounge."

That snapped Wilson back into the present. "You WHAT?"

House grinned. "I lost you for a minute. Thought that would bring you back. Even better than 'Do helicopters eat their young?' line, huh? I'll have to use it more often."

Wilson shook his head, trying to fight the grin he knew was going to form, with or without his permission. "You're insane, you know that right?"

"Recent events could suggest the same about you, you know. Not sure I feel safe driving back to Jersey with you…" House trailed off as he realized how close to the mark that had hit. He winced sympathetically as the sting those words had left crossed his friend's face. "Jimmy, it wasn't your fault. It was a medical anomaly. You know that! You can't blame yourself for what you did when you were completely out of your mind!" He almost slapped himself in the head. "Okay, there had to be a better way to say that. But what it means is that it's not your fault."

Wilson almost smirked at that one. "Not my fault? A grown man forgets to eat, horrible complications ensue, and it's not my fault?"

House shook his head. "First off, that does not constitute horrible complications. You're an oncologist for crying out loud! Horrible complications would entail you getting brain damaged or your heart stopping, or…" His voice took on the most seriousness he had ever heard in it, even more than when he had told him that the friendship mattered during the whole Vogler fiasco. "I could have lost you."

Way too deep to deal with right now. Wilson could have pushed that, and House might have even told him how much the friendship actually mattered, but he just couldn't deal with that right now. Plus, he knew how much House tended to hate himself after showing emotion. "Not doing so hot on the whole 'convincing me it wasn't my fault' thing. And where the hell are the pancakes? Did they have to harvest the wheat?"

As if on cue, a cute little waitress with short red hair showed up with trays of steaming pancakes. Wilson's stomach let out an alarming growl, and he dug into the plate of chocolaty pancakes almost before she had sat them down. House watched, amused, as his friend ate with more enthusiasm than he had seen in a long time. He picked at his own pecan pancakes, thinking that they were nowhere near as good as the Macadamia nut ones that Wilson fixed, and making a mental note to demand some when they got back. After he had practically swallowed two of them whole, House felt confident that they could return to the conversation. He didn't want Wilson torturing himself over this the whole trip home, the way he knew the oncologist's over-developed conscience would without a doubt force him to do. "It wasn't your fault. Will you accept that?"

Wilson looked at him doubtfully. "If you say so."

"I didn't eat, either," House told him. "It could just as easily been me."

He stuffed a large bite into his mouth. "But it wasn't."

"This time. How many other times has it been me that's out of my mind?" Wilson's mind raced with unwelcome images, including one in which he hadn't been the friend House was being to him. He looked at House, trying to think of anything but how he betrayed him on Christmas Eve, how he left his friend laying in a pool of his own vomit. House seemed to read his mind. "Okay, nothing is coming out right this morning. Can you just accept that it's okay?"

Wilson allowed a half-smile to cross his face, the closest he would allow to agreeing. "How's you eye? Double vision? Headache?"

House smiled indulgently. "Go ahead and ask it."

"Does it hurt?"

"A little. Not bad. And nothing like the hurt you put in that little punk. All the other stuff aside, you saved our asses."

"How's everything taste, boys?" the little redheaded waitress appeared again, cheerleader-style skirt swishing. She smiled brightly at them, but with particular warmth at Wilson, which House filed away for further use.

"It's wonderful!" Wilson said. "Best I've ever had."

House snickered at the possible double meaning there, and the waitress blushed, but didn't back down. "You haven't had much then, have you?"

It was Wilson's turn to blush, and House couldn't hold back the laughter. "Honey, you have no idea!"

"Can't say I wouldn't like to find out…" She gave him an appraising look. "I'll be back with your check." With that, she was gone.

Wilson's pupils were dilated, House noticed, and he couldn't seem to sit still. It wasn't so much shakiness as it was simply restlessness. House began counting it up in his mind. Two amps of D50, four chocolate chip pancakes, almost a whole bottle of syrup…the way he was talking way too fast…Wilson was on a sugar high. That was funny. Then he noticed something else. In addition to the restlessness, there was a discomfort in the way he shifted his hips in the chair. Almost like…The waitress was cute, but not that cute, and her flirting wasn't even on the expert level Wilson was used to. Everybody lies, but symptoms never do. Well, well. Sugar highs made Wilson…frisky. That was definitely information to keep in mind. It could prove entertaining later. But for now, to do one more favor for his friend…

To keep things interesting until the waitress came back, he asked Wilson a simple hockey question –Do you think the Flyers have a shot at not sucking this year?- which led to a machine-gun volley of possibilities, aided by hand gestures, and it was all House could do to keep up. But keeping up was difficult, as Wilson seemed to be contradicting himself the more he talked. House was reminded of the time he spiked Wilson's coffee with amphetamines. This was just as entertaining, but much safer. He thought to himself that he would have to talk Cuddy into having a bunch of chocolate at the next department head meeting, then keep his friend too busy to eat lunch. That would just be too funny. Especially if Cuddy was wearing a particularly low-cut blouse. Special bonus if it was way too tight to look professional. Maybe he could bribe her into wearing that tank top. He would even go to that meeting. It would be worth the boredom just to watch Jimmy squirm…

He was so lost in thought that he almost didn't notice the waitress until she was already talking to Wilson, and was about to give him the check. "Here," he said, taking the bill from her hand. I got this, uh…" he paused to look at her name tag. "Katie. It's the least I can do for our hero, here." He stared at Wilson admiringly.

"Hero?" she asked, intrigued.

Wilson turned a shade of red that just made House's day. "Oh, yeah! He saved my life, and that of the clerk at the 7-11. Took on an armed gunman with only his bare hands. Beat him to a pulp, then tried to hold him until the police got there, but he got away. Bastard would have killed us all if Jimmy hadn't stepped in." He leaned back to watch his handiwork.

He was not disappointed. Her eyes got very wide. "Wow! That was so brave! You could have been killed!"

Wilson looked down at the table. "Well, that's not exactly the way it happened…"

"Oh, don't be so modest!" House exclaimed. "The police are watching hospitals now, and they're sure they'll catch him."

She picked up one of his bruised hands and tenderly brushed her fingers over the damaged knuckles. "Looks like it hurts," she said.

Wilson's breath was speeding up way more than it had the right to. "Not so bad."

"He'd never admit it if they did. Gotta be tough to be a hero, ya' know," House added. "But he knows how badly they can be damaged. He's a doctor."

"Wow!" she said. "You're a doctor too?"

"Yeah," he said, squirming in his seat, as she still hadn't stopped gently rubbing his hand, massaging further up on his hand, past the bruises, and whatever pain he had felt in his hands was a distant memory. Very distant. Had his hands ever hurt? "An oncologist." His face was flushed, and he seemed to have a hard time forming the word. "I treat cancer."

Her hands migrated up to his wrist, and it was all he could do not to let out an audible moan. There was no way this should feel this good. His pants were suddenly rather uncomfortable. "So today's rescue was only the most recent in a long line of heroic deeds, huh?"

"I-uh-you could say that…"

She met his eyes. "It's time for my break. We could got back into the break room and get you some ice."

His eyes widened. "Huh? Ice?" That threw him. Kinky was one thing, but…

She smiled. "For your hand, silly. Take the swelling down, make it not hurt." She pouted slightly, and Wilson was putty in her hands. "I don't want you to be in pain." She started toward the back, still holding Wilson's hand. With a helpless look to House that was almost cute, he stood up to follow her. House made a shooing gesture, smirking, clearly indicating that he was an idiot for still standing there. Then he grinned, and followed her like a puppy.

House sat there, finishing his pancakes and considering ordering a fruit plate. He hoped the girl could relax him again. This trip had been like one of those absurd dreams that you just had to laugh at when you woke up. Hopefully, after they finished in there, they could pack their stuff and head home. He was going to have fun explaining the shape they were in to Cuddy as it was. And they were going to have to hurry. Because he had taken his last vicodin while Wilson was in the ER. And assuming Wilson didn't have a prescription pad down the front of his pants, he would have to wait until they were back.

Just then, there was a loud crash from the back of the restaurant, followed by a cry of pain and a terrified scream. Katie came running out of the back room behind the counter. She had blood oozing from her head and her nose. "Help! He needs a doctor!"

House stood up and hurried as best he could, ignoring the protest his leg made, toward the room. Wilson was lying on the floor amongst the remains of a broken table and a broken shelf. He was shirtless, and had his right arm cradling his left to his chest, whimpering in pain. House sucked in a breath. "Fuck, Jimmy. What did you do to yourself now?!"


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Well, here's another update for you guys. Hope you enjoy, even though I went a litle heavy on the angst and pain. It's bee a rough week and the coming one is only going to be worse. I have to take it out on something, and Poor House and Wilson just happened to be there...As always, read and respond! Enjoy!

Everybody was staring, so House pulled Katie inside the room and shut the door. He hoped he wasn't seeing what he thought he was seeing, but when he got closer, there was no mistaking the deformity in Wilson's left shoulder. "Shit! That has to hurt!" He stepped closer to examine it, and Wilson drew back.

House knew it had to be nearly unbearable, he knew how excruciating a dislocation could be. "Jimmy, hang on. Just let me check your pulse, ok? I won't touch anything else on your arm? Can you handle me just touching your wrist?" Wilson nodded, and he very gently reached for the pulse point. "What happened?" he asked. This was bad. He couldn't find the pulse in his wrist. Moving his hand down to the trembling fingers, and squeezed on a fingertip. Shit. The blood was taking way too long to flow back into the nail bed. His capillary refill was impaired. The blood flow to this arm was compromised by the misplaced bone.

In response to his question, Wilson was restraining himself from vocally expressing the pain, barely, by chewing roughly on his bottom lip. Katie, who had gotten a few tissues to stop the bleeding from the small gash in her head, was squatting beside him, answered. "We were gonna…well, you know, and I guess the table wasn't strong enough for us and then Jimmy tried to catch us on that shelf and it wasn't strong enough either, and then it fell, and…"

House got the picture alright. Geez! You'd think Wilson would know better! He wasn't a rookie, for God's sake! Okay, he could laugh about this later. Right now, his friend was in serious pain, with his circulation compromised. "Call an ambulance!" he instructed Katie.

She turned to do as she was told when Wilson snaked his good arm out to grab her wrist. The move cost him, and he was unable to stop the pitiful whimper that escaped his lips. Finally regaining control of his voice, he gasped out, "No ambulance! No hospital!"

House looked at him like a particularly slow child. "Jimmy, your shoulder is dislocated, and the circulation is compromised. You have to be sedated; it has to be put back in place, and quick. An ambulance is our best hope to avoid tissue damage."

When he saw that Katie had paused, he pulled his right arm back to stabilize his left one, the pain was quickly becoming unbearable. God, House had to know how bad this hurt! Did he really expect him to let an ambulance crew mess with him, wait for a trip to the hospital, and all that? He'd never last that long. "You know what to do, right?" he forced out, gasping for breath as each shaky inhalation tore through the left side of his body.

House refused to even consider what that meant. "Yeah, I know to call an ambulance, get you the best drugs we can, get this done painlessly by the pros."

Wilson started to shake his head, but realized it would rank on the top five list of stupidest ideas ever. "No hospital. You're a doctor, fix it!"

House felt a wave of nausea flood him. Oh, man… "Jimmy, please don't ask me to do that! Not without drugging you to the gills! Do you even know how much that will hurt?"

"Yes!" he hissed. "Do you know how much it hurts now?! Just give me a vicodin, and do it already!"

"I-uh-well…"

"Spit it out, House."

"I'm out of vicodin."

Wilson cursed inwardly. He should have thought of that. It had been longer this time than it had been in a while. He gritted his teeth. "Then just do it."

House was torn. He couldn't stand to see Wilson in this kind of pain. But… "Wilson, I can't be the one to hurt you like that! I just can't!"

"Why not? You generally enjoy torturing people!"

"But not you," House replied, his voice soft and worried. "Not like this."

Finally, Wilson had to go with a cheap shot. He would apologize later for the emotional blackmail, but he had to make the pain stop somehow, and at this point, a bullet to the head was beginning to look promising. "You're not trying to torture me? What do you call letting me suffer when you have it in your power to fix it? You could stop the pain, but you won't!" He could see House's defenses crumbling, and went for the killing blow. "If you really cared about me, you'd do it."

The last wall of sanity House had to defend himself against this insanely bad idea came crashing down around him. How the hell was he supposed to resist that? He sighed, and steeled himself to cause his friend more pain than he had ever experienced. "Ok, Jimmy. I'll do it. But it's going to hurt like hell."

"I know," he said, his eyes glazed with tears. He knew how much it would hurt House to cause him that much pain, and felt a flash of guilt for making him do it, but once the bone was back in place the pain would decrease by a factor of ten. Of course, putting it back in would feel like dynamite going off inside his shoulder, but you take the rough with the smooth. "Thanks."

"Don't thank me!" House growled. "I'm about to do something that could make you pass out from pain!" He turned to Katie. "Can you help me, or are you going to get sick?"

She nodded solemnly, eyes so full of compassion that for a moment she could be mistaken for Cameron. If her hair was about three shades darker. And longer. "I want to help him."

"You know that what I'm going to do to his is going to be rough, to say the least?"

"What can I do?"

"Hold his hand."

She scowled. "I thought you needed real help!"

He almost grinned at that. She shared his views about the type of medicine both Wilson and Cameron stood for. Instead, he growled again. "I don't mean for comfort! Get a hold on his right arm, and don't let him hit me. It'll hurt real bad, and that will be his first instinct!"

"Oh," she replied, and House focused back on Wilson.

"Okay," he told his friend in the most soothing voice he could manage. "We're going to ease you back on the floor so you're laying flat, okay?" Wilson looked at him and nodded feebly, trying not to jar his arm. House placed one arm vertically along his spine, wrapped the other around his right shoulder and eased him slowly back onto the floor. He took a few ragged breaths, adjusting to the pain, and then released his left arm to lay motionless against his chest. Katie took his right hand in both of hers, and realized that if she was going to fight against his struggles, she would need more leverage. Placing her body between his hand and his body, she began rubbing his wrist soothingly again.

House looked directly into Wilson's eyes, hoping for a last minute reprieve from this horrible task. Bravely held back tears shimmered like ice chips over the pain-filled brown eyes, and House knew he had to do it. He couldn't leave Jimmy hurting like this for even another minute. "I'm sorry, Jimmy," he said, hoping his eyes conveyed that he felt every bit of pain the younger man did at the situation, then had to look away as he manipulated the misplaced bones. Wilson lost what control he had and let out a horrible scream, which cut off instantly as an audible 'pop' echoed around them, signaling that the bone had gone back into it's socket.

Wilson gasped violently for the breath the explosion of pain had chased from him, and House grabbed his wrist. The pulse was strong and bounding. Perfect. He turned to Katie. "Get me a couple of towels." Nodding quickly, she was off. Wilson slowly sat back up, holding his left arm still, but no longer pinning it to his chest as it was possible to move it without being in agony. A little, anyways.

House finally slumped to the floor beside him, his own pain popping in to say hello now that his immediate concern for Wilson's pain was not so immediate. Wilson slumped back against him, still breathing hard. Sweat from his neck soaked into House's t-shirt, and he looked absolutely drained. "Better now?" House asked, more concern than he was comfortable with creeping into his voice.

"Yeah," said Wilson. "Still hurts, but nothing like it did."

"Gonna put it into a sling, then get you to the hospital. You still need x-rays."

Wilson shook his head wearily. "Not here." He sat up straight to look at House. "It doesn't hurt that bad, it's in place, my pulse is good. Take me home? To our hospital?"

House wasn't sure he liked the idea of driving a third of the way across the country with an unstable joint getting tossed about. But then, his leg wasn't going to like the idea of driving a third of the way across the country under it's current circumstances. Of all the times to run out of Vicodin! But Wilson's voice cut through his thought like a knife through hot butter. He was so pale, pain still etched on his face. "Please? House, just take me home?"

He could never deny Wilson something when he used that tone. If he had used that pained, pathetic tone after the infarction, they could have had his damn leg. There was just no saying no to it. "Okay," he said, voice shaky with both physical and emotional pain. "We'll go home. Just one question." Wilson studied him thoughtfully, trying to anticipate it and have an answer. "Just who the hell's going to drive?"


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Hey, guys, I'm back! Thank you so much for the kind words and prayers. My grandmother is doing well, and is hopefully cancer-free. This chapter was difficult to write. I wasn't sure if I got my point across, so be sure to let me know. Hope you enjoy it, and thanks to Laurie1985 for the helping me slove the problem.

The question rattled around in Wilson's mind for only a split-second before Katie arrived, and House quickly fashioned a sling and swathe to immobilize his arm to his chest. She watched as he flinched when House tightened the towel pinning it to his chest, and her heart ached for him. It was all her fault. He had wanted to use the chair in the corner; the table had been her idea. She just wanted to make him feel better.

Wilson, his arm now supported fully by the sling so his right arm was free, pulled himself to his feet shakily. His arm, shoulder, and the far left side of his chest still ached horribly, but it was tolerable. Although he had a feeling that his definition of tolerable may have been changed by this experience. He could drive, sure. But he hurt so bad, he was almost willing to go back to the hospital just to get some pain medicine. Not just his shoulder, everything hurt now. The fall, and the shelf falling on him had brought back to attack mode every abuse his body had endured over the last few days. House might be in trouble, though. How long could he go without a vicodin before the pain got unbearable? Before the withdrawal symptoms that had caused him so much agony during that bet took over? Wilson didn't know. But he did know what would happen if he showed up at the hospital looking like this asking for pain meds, and oh, by the way could he have a couple of vicodin for the road? For his friend? They'd either end up locked up, or in the psych ward. Better to just get home.

They were up and on their way to the car, ignoring the stares of the few people sitting around the restaurant at six am, when Katie ran up to them. "Jimmy!" she called, and Wilson wasn't sure he ever wanted to hear that nickname again after this trip. She caught up with them at the car, House limping badly, clutching his cane much tighter than usual, and Wilson's arm supported in a sling House had MacGyvered out of two towels. Offering them a pill bottle, she said, "Here. Take this, it will help with the pain."

He read the label and smiled. "Vicodin," he said. Opening it, he shook the one pill out into his palm. There was a guy's name on the label, but he didn't care whose it was or how he got it. Now House wouldn't have to hurt and they could go home.

Knowing that wasn't what Katie had in mind, he slipped it into his pocket. "Thank you so much," he said, giving her the most charming smile he could manage. "I would hug you, but…" He gestured toward his damaged shoulder with his left hand and shrugged with the one he could still move. "Sorry we couldn't…you know. And sorry about the table. And the shelf. Are you going to be in trouble?"

She shook her head. "Nah. My boss has a sense of humor. As long as you don't sue the restaurant, He'll think it's hilarious."

"Well…" Wilson wasn't sure what to say then, so he trailed off.

"Look," said Katie, "It was fun until we hit the floor. If you're ever this way again…"

"I'll totally look you up," he agreed eagerly.

"And I intend to see to it that he NEVER comes through this way again," said House, rolling his eyes. "Let's go!"

Wilson shrugged, forgetting for a moment, and was rewarded by a flare of pain that nearly floored him. "Yeah, go," he said recovering. "Gotta go." He gave her one last smile and got in the car. His smile faded when he saw House trying in vain to get comfortable behind the wheel. He pulled the tiny white piece of salvation from his pocket. "Here. Only five milligrams, but it will help."

House looked at him skeptically. "Where did you get that?!"

"Katie had it. I didn't ask where she got it."

House looked at it, trying to ignore the pain radiating from his thigh. It would be so easy to accept it…"No way," he said. "She gave it to you. You take it."

Wilson looked at him in shock. "Me?"

"Yeah, you. The one who's shoulder was recently sticking out the front of his chest. You're still hurting. You take it, and you can drive."

Wilson was touched. House was going to turn down a vicodin so he wouldn't be in pain. At no point in their friendship had he considered that he ranked that high on Houses list. "No, House. Your leg outranks my shoulder."

House started the car. "Nope. You're a doctor. You know that acute pain trumps chronic pain. I'll drive until it hits."

"It's not that bad, House. I'll live. Take the pill." This speech was almost convincing until House hit a bump that caused Wilson to cry out in pain and grip his upper arm for dear life.

House contemplated this. "I won't take it and leave you in pain."

Wilson could play this game too. "And I won't take it and leave you in pain." House didn't reply. "Really. It's not so bad. I can simply take some acetaminophen."

A light came on in House's mind. He whipped the car into the local Rite-Aid pharmacy. Wilson just looked at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he had really given in that easily. Usually, he wouldn't, but… He held out the pill.

House shook his head. "Stay put."

He hobbled into the store as quickly as he could. Wilson could only sit there and watch him make his painful way to the door, wondering if his injury had finally taught House that it hurts more to watch that to actually feel it. "I could have gotten my own bottle of Tylenol," he muttered.

House was back in ten minutes, and he was grinning as much as his pain would allow him. He produced a few items from the bag. He held up a heat pack in one hand and a bottle of Benedryl in the other. "You take the pill, Jimmy. I'll use these."

He looked at his friend like he had lost his mind. "You can't do that! Benedryl doesn't do anything for pain! Look, just take the vicodin. You know I have a very low tolerance, and I probably couldn't drive after that anyway." He reached for the heat pack, but House pulled it back.

"No, Benedryl doesn't do anything for pain, but enough of it and I will be unconscious. Therefore, pain will not be a problem."

This was getting them nowhere. Finally, Wilson sighed. "Okay, how's this: let's flip a coin for it. Winner gets the vicodin and drives us home. Loser takes several benedryl, and sleeps through the trip."

House looked him over. This wasn't like Wilson. The younger man would never gamble on something like this. "And you'll go along, no matter who wins?"

His shoulder hurt so badly, and Wilson was surprised to find that he WANTED the vicodin. Badly, even. He had never been in enough pain to take House's last pill away from him. But if he won the coin toss, he would. There was only so much a man could take. It wouldn't help his conscience, but it would at least keep the physical agony at bay for a while. "Yeah. If I win, I'll take it. If you win?"

House sighed. "Yeah, if I win, I'll take it. Got a quarter?"

Wilson pulled one out of his pocket, showed House that it indeed had a heads and a tails. "You flip. I can't catch it."

House flipped the coin into the air, and Wilson called tails. House knew it was heads as soon as Wilson said it. He knew he 'won', and wasn't sure what to do. He showed it to Wilson, who handed him the pill. "You win," he said.

House paled, but he had agreed. He took it from him, then looked at Wilson carefully. "Jimmy…"

Shaking his head, Wilson cut him off. "Take it. I'll take the Benedryl. I'll be unconscious, you'll be… not hurting."

House did as he was told, then handed Wilson four benedryl, thought again, and handed him another one. Swallowing them with a bottle of water, he leaned back against his seat, waiting for them to lead him into unconsciousness.

House started the car again, put the hot pack back in the bag to pull out a cold pack. He popped the inner seal to activate it, he gently placed it on Wilson's shoulder. The sudden cold made him flinch, but it numbed the area relatively quickly. "Still want the Tylenol?" he asked, holding up the other bottle he bought.

Wilson shook his head, sleepiness already creeping in. 125mg of benedryl was way too much, and soon he would be asleep. No reason to do even more damage to his liver. The pain was still there but the fuzziness in his mind had pushed it into the background. He closed his eyes, and sank even deeper into the seat until he felt House's eyes on him. "What?"

"You okay?"

Wilson opened his eyes to see House staring at him. "Give it up, House. You don't do guilt, remember?" His eyes fluttered shut again, and within minutes, his breathing lost its ragged quality and evened out. House removed the ice pack from his shoulder, and put the car in gear. His own pain back to a manageable level, he gave his best friend one last look and pulled the car out on the road. Sighing audibly, he said, "Just keep believing that, Jimmy. Help me maintain my reputation. Wish it was true, though. Be a lot easier…"


	21. Chapter 21

Note: So sorry about the mix-up! this chapter didn't download completely, so I'm reposting it. Hope this makes more sense!

House was on the eastern state line of Ohio when his bladder finally got the best of him. Ordinarily, he would just pull off the road, get out, and do his business, but he was also getting a little sleepy. He thought about trying to wake Wilson up and seeing if he could drive, but the memory of his friend's eyes earlier, full of pain and desperation, stopped him. If he was asleep, he wasn't hurting.

He saw a sign for a rest area a mile away, so he moved to the right lane and pulled off onto the ramp. There was a handicapped spot right in front of the bathrooms. In the next building was a row of snack machines. Just what he needed, something sugary and nutrient-free to keep him awake. It was a little walk, and the half-strength vicodin was starting to wear off, but he figured it was better to have some pain than to fall asleep and kill them both.

He put a hand on Wilson's shoulder. "I'm going to go in here for a minute. I'll be right back, don't worry. You want anything?" Wilson's breathing never changed, he never stirred. House shook him a little, and got no response. Lovely. Not only doesn't he have any tolerance to the good stuff, he can't even handle his allergy medicine!

House left him lying back in the seat, the sun shining down on his face through the still-open convertible top. He looked rather peaceful. Looking back, House knew better than to leave him there, all alone and vulnerable. He remembered what Wilson had told him one night, outraged over House putting his hand in water while he was asleep. He wasn't mad because House made him wet the bed, he was mad that House had launched an attack on him while he was asleep. "When a person is asleep, they're completely defenseless. They can't protect themselves." That had led to them negotiating a mock Geneva Convention, an agreement for all further pranks.

House just wished he had remembered the part about being vulnerable and helpless before he left him there alone. What greeted him when he came back startled him. Wilson was still lying in the seat, duct tape over his mouth and his hands taped together to the door handle. He was still asleep. Dread overwhelmed him as he hobbled as quickly as he could to the passenger side of the car. He ripped the tape off of Wilson's face, and he didn't even flinch. His head lolled about like a rag doll.

Panicked, House checked his pulse. Slow, but steady. He wasn't injured, just comatose from the diphenhydramine overdose. So what the Hell happened?! He looked around the car as he unwound the tape from Wilson's hands. He was glad his friend was asleep for this, he could feel it rip from his skin, and it would have hurt like hell. It was only when he had freed the unconscious man's hands that he got the answer. His cell phone, his wallet, Wilson's phone and wallet, the car keys, and the stereo were gone. They had been robbed. While Wilson was laying there asleep! House felt his knees go weak in a way that had nothing to do with the infarction.

Sitting down heavily in the driver's seat, he tried to process the latest crisis. He needed to wake Wilson up. But first, he needed to replace the sling those bastards had removed to immobilize Wilson's hands. Shit. They had taken the keys! They were stuck!

House had absolutely no idea what to do now. He shook Wilson again. "Come on, buddy. Gotta wake up and help me here. I need someone to tell me what an idiotic mess I've gotten us in. Can't have me getting complacent or smug, can we?"

He got no response. "Wilson!" he yelled loudly, shaking him rougher by his good shoulder. As much as he needed him awake, he just couldn't bring himself to put pressure on his wounded shoulder to wake him up. "Wilson, you half-witted joke of an oncologist, wake up!" He was starting to get alarmed. 125mg of Benedryl was way too much, but he didn't think it would turn him into a reasonable facsimile of Coma Guy. "If you don't wake up right now, I'm going to tell Cameron you've been carrying a torch for her since the day you met her. And maybe Chase too!"

Wilson still didn't move on his own. He was completely unresponsive. He didn't have a clue how to hot-wire a car. So without the key, they were stuck. Wilson was a salad component at the moment. He was just inside of Ohio with no money, no phone, and no vicodin. This wasn't good.

He let his head hang into his hands and laughed uncontrollably. There was nothing else to do. This was just absurd, and getting worse. The ache in his leg was getting worse, and this time, there was no cute little waitress to show up with relief. He was bordering on panic, when he saw a little flash of green from Wilson's jacket pocket. Chase's iPod was in his pocket, somehow it had been spared from the robbers. House knew what he had to do.

It was a long way to the phone. And it was going to hurt big time. At least two hundred yards away, he had passed the hut that housed the pay phones on his way in. His thigh was shooting sparks through the rest of his leg and into his lower back. It would be at least six hours before the cavalry could arrive. Withdrawal symptoms would set in before four had passed. This was going to totally suck. Trying to wake Wilson one more time, he lightly slapped his face with little hope. Nothing. Shit.

Leaving Wilson alone was what had gotten them into this mess. But there was no other alternative. He couldn't carry him with him. Wilson wasn't large, but he was far from pocket-sized. He could be asleep for another 8 hours, so waiting for him to wake up was out of the question. But he had been robbed and…messed with…while House was twenty feet away in the bathroom. What would happen if he was two football fields away? Wilson was helpless. Vulnerable. But there was no choice.

Dry-swallowing four of the Tylenol pills he'd had picked up back in Evansville, he braced himself for the journey. He tried to occupy his mind while he forced his complaining body to get to the phone. It took him nearly fifteen minutes to get there, and by the time he did, his leg was screaming at him, full volume. Hours had passed since that last pill, half what he was used to, and it was bad. It was all he could do to keep his hand steady as he dialed the 800-number posted on the phone, and pressed 1 to call collect. It rang twice, and he had never been so happy to hear that Australian accent. "Chase!" he said, relief overshadowing the pain for once. "Listen, Wilson needs your help. Incidentally, I'm here too."


	22. Chapter 22

Wilson was pulled from his drug-induced fog by the pain, throbbing in his shoulder like the epicenter of an earthquake, radiating throughout the entire right side of his body. He was valiantly trying to fade back into the fog when he heard a pitiful sound beside him. Opening his eyes as little as he could and still see, he saw House sitting beside him, shivering, sweat pouring from every pore. He whimpered again, and all thoughts of passing back out fled his mind. His first instinct was to reach out to him, but he knew that if House knew he was awake he would never have made a sound. The only way he could know how bad it was hurting him was to play dead.

A quick peek at the clock showed that he had been out for several hours, long enough for the half-strength vicodin to have worn off. The question was, had it just worn off? Or was this a step further? Was this simply the pain, or the beginnings of withdrawal? He had seen House through withdrawal once before, and he hadn't been as good a friend as he should have been. God, he hoped that wasn't what was wrong. That had been horrible to watch, and he didn't even want to think about how it felt.

House whimpered slightly again, not knowing he was being watched, and Wilson felt his heart break for him. He was sitting in the driver's seat of the car, top still down as they had never managed to get it fixed, and his left leg pulled up to his chest, his right leg stretched out the open door, trembling somewhat. His black t-shirt was plastered to his body from the sweat and he was a shade of pale Wilson had never seen outside of an autopsy room. He was torn between comforting him and letting him have his all-important pride when the choice was made for him. House retched, tried to turn toward the door, and lost his balance in the seat. He started to fall out of the car. Wilson reacted instinctively, reaching out with both hands to catch him.

He pulled loose from his sling, pain tearing through his shoulder, but his hands caught in House's t-shirt and kept him from crashing to the blacktop. A cry was out of his throat before he could stop it, not that he could have anyway. The pain was just too great. But he didn't let go, he held on until House was able to right himself. When he was stable in his seat again, Wilson let go, trying in vain to suppress the whimper as he tried to maneuver his injured arm back into the sling. House stilled him with a hand, and gently retied the sling around his arm, rather than trying to manipulate his arm back into place. Wilson was too shaken by how wet and clammy House's skin felt against his own to even wince. Definitely not the pain, then. "How long have you been like this?"

House refused to meet his eyes. "How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough."

"Same here."

Wilson shook his head. It was on his tongue to ask the question House despised, but he caught himself. It was obvious he wasn't alright. No need to make him lie. "Anything I can do?"

House smirked. "Do you have a vicodin stuffed down your pants?"

Wilson wanted to grin at that, but the pain his friend was in took all humor from the situation. "Where are we?"

House shrugged. "Somewhere in Ohio."

He looked around, taking the rest area they were at in, and wondering why they were there. "Do you need me to drive? I'm awake now."

House frowned for a moment, then remembered that he didn't know what had happened. "Uh, well, one problem with that. We're kinda stuck here."

"Stuck? Did we run out of gas?"

"Nope," said House, pausing to gag slightly, them shiver. Wilson's heart clenched, and he wished he had a jacket or something he could wrap around his friend's thin shoulders. He continued, "We got robbed. Took our wallets, cell phones, the stereo, and the keys. Tied you to the door with duct tape, and disappeared. All in the time it took me to empty my bladder. I have no idea why they didn't take the car, maybe because you were in it, or maybe they were afraid it might belong to someone connected or maybe it was just a junkie who didn't want to get into grand theft, I don't know. You'll want to cancel your credit cards when you get home."

Wilson's head was spinning. "What? We were robbed?" It occurred to him that House might be putting him on, but when he looked at his wrists he saw that they were abraded and still covered with sticky stuff. "Damn. So we're stuck here? What are we going to do? Have you called the police? How are we going to get home?"

House shuddered again, his stomach rolling alarmingly and an explosion of pain shot from his thigh. He staggered from the vehicle to vomit in the bushes. Wilson was out of the car quickly enough to wrap his good arm around him to steady him as he emptied his stomach. Wilson whispered soothingly to him, balancing him with his left arm and wishing he could move his left one to rub his back or something.

Finally, when his stomach finished rebelling, he sat on the grass and scooted away from the mess. Wilson sat down beside him. When he was breathing with something resembling regularity, he continued the conversation like it had never been interrupted. "It all happened about five hours ago. The police have already been and gone. I somehow convinced them you had been out the whole time. I think the fact that you didn't even react when they threatened to Mace you convinced them. I tried to get them to call a locksmith or something, but they went out of their way to show how useless they were, so no help there. Also, they noticed something I had missed. Bastards slashed the tires too. Locksmith would be about as useful as giving antibiotics for the flu."

Wilson still felt a little foggy. He wasn't sure he was following this. "What are we going to do? How are we going to get home?! And where the Hell are we?"

House suppressed a shudder as another wave of pain and nausea shot through his body. He wished Wilson would go back to sleep. This was bad enough without people having to see him like this. But, even though he would never admit it under any form of torture, it helped a little to know that this time he didn't have to go through it alone. He didn't have to try to be strong this time. He could actually let someone know how much this hurt. This thought flooded him with guilt as he met Wilson's eyes and saw the sympathetic pain there. A little bit of comfort wasn't worth what this was doing to Wilson. He fished the bottle of Benedryl out of his pocket and offered it to him. "Take some more of these. By the time you wake up, we'll be safe at home, you're shoulder will be taken care of, and this will all be over."

Wilson looked at him incredulously. "You really think I'm going to knock myself back out and leave you like this, with us stranded, at a rest area in the middle of nowhere? You ARE out of your mind! And you never did tell me where the Hell we are!" His voice softened quickly when he realized the loud noise had to be painful to House while he was detoxing. "I'm not going to abandon you this time."

House opened his mouth to reply, but there were no words to respond to that. He simply put a hand on Wilson's arm, hoping that gesture would convey all the feelings his mind wouldn't form the words for. Most prominently, 'thank you'.

It sufficed just fine. Wilson smiled broadly, confident that he had repaired at least one of the cracks he had managed to put in their friendship over the past year. House was still struggling to come up with something to say, something touching and meaningful, but still was unable. So he once again let his actions speak for him. Fumbling in his other pocket, he pulled out the bottle of Tylenol. Wilson quickly took it, shook four of them into his hand. This told House way more than words could. First he had been willing to take too much Benedryl, now 800mg of ibuprophen. Wilson never took more than the recommended dose of anything. His shoulder must be killing him. "We're just outside of Cleveland. I thought we were closer than that but the police said we're only about twenty miles out of city limits. You know it's ranked sixth or seventh on the worst cities for crime in the country?"

"No," Wilson replied, wondering just where House got all of his obscure knowledge. Who can just pull stuff like that out of their ass, assuming they never lived in Cleveland. "So, what's the plan?"

"I've got the wombat coming to the rescue. He should be here anytime."

"You called Chase to come and get us?"

"Yeah. It was either him or Cuddy, and I figure I can wait another half day before Mom sends me to my room for letting my little brother get hurt." Wilson smiled at the sentiment, but it faded when he realized House was still looking at him and frowning. "You look like shit, you know that?"

"Thanks. Good to know you'll always be around in case I have a self-esteem crisis."

House didn't crack a smile. "Hold still, let me check you out." Wilson made a face, but stayed still as House pulled his t-shirt up as much as he could without disturbing his shoulder. The Tylenol, as House had predicted, was barely taking off the edge. He squirmed a little with discomfort as House palpated the fractured ribs, and checked the bruises that were fading, but still a very clear greenish-black. Fixing the shirt back, he took inventory. Broken ribs, stomach still looking like…well, like he had been tired up and beaten…fresh bruises on his back, probably from falling on that table and items from the shelf hitting him on the way down, face was still a mess, one eye completely black, the other slightly bruised, bruises trailing down his jaw and into the mess of damaged skin where House had remover the duct tape. Then there was the shoulder. Not to mention the fact that his hair was still that weird shade of black and the tattoo. He smirked, finishing his exam. "As your doctor, I'm going to recommend that you refrain from spur-of-the-moment road trips with irresponsible, drug-addicted cripples. They seem to be bad for your general well-being."

Wilson laughed out loud. "I look that rough, huh?" House nodded. "Well, if it's any consolation, you're not exactly Playgirl material yourself right now."

Clapping both hands to his heart, House let out a mock groan. "Ouch, Jimmy! You wound me to the core!"

They both laughed at that one, despite the pain flaring from an injured shoulder and a damaged thigh, despite the nausea, the dehydration from the Benedryl overdose and the nasty taste from dry-swallowing Tylenol. This one moment made the whole trip worth all the pain. Moments like this were the reason Wilson agonized over every fight, every harsh word, why he forgave House for every insult and every outrageous stunt. Because moments like this, when nothing else mattered but the two of them enjoying themselves, were worth everything.

They were still laughing like schoolboys when the familiar car pulled up, and a disheveled Australian jumped out of the driver's side. The two injured doctors looked up at him in unison, both biting their lips to hold back the laughter, looking very much like two little boys who are going to have to explain the best prank ever to someone who was going to yell at them but laugh about it later. Chase looked at them for a moment, then asked in a very shocked voice. "What in the name of St. Peter happened to you two?!"

This prompted another fit of giggles from the objects of the rescue mission. Chase looked at them like they had lost their minds. "Are you two drunk?"

"Not right now," Wilson answered, trying to control himself. It was just too funny. But he had one serious question. "Did you bring Vicodin?"

Chase pulled a bottle out of his back pocket and held it out. Wilson reached for it, but Chase pulled it back. "Not until I have some answers. Why are you here in the middle of nowhere, and why do you look like POWs?"

"Well," House began. "It all started when we got lost. Then we tried camping, but Wilson got bit by a snake. And then-"

Wilson cut in. "Then this redneck with a shotgun showed up, and we took me to this hospital like something out of Stephen King world-"

"And they tried to sew him up without Lidocaine. Then we went to this party and picked up a pair of 16-year-old twins, and their dad got mad, so we wound up in jail where the handcuffed Wilson to a pipe and beat the shit out of him and fried me with a taser."

Wilson snapped his head up. He didn't know about that! He continued, "Then we paintballed this guy's house, and bought some moonshine from this hillbilly kid and it got us really trashed-

"So trashed that we dyed Jimmy's hair green and he got a tattoo. Then we got thrown off the second story of a riverboat when he won the poker tournament. Then Jimmy stopped a robbery at the 7-11, but went into a hypoglycemic fit and wound up in four-point restraints-"

Wilson broke in before House could embellish on the situation with Katie. "Then we went to the IHOP and this waitress was really cute, and she was really nice-"

House couldn't let Wilson have all the fun with this one. "And they were going to go at it in the break room when the table broke, and he tried to catch them both on a shelf. It fell on them, and pulled his shoulder out of socket. I had to put it back in place, and I was out of vicodin so his waitress gave him one and we flipped a coin for it. I won, so he took several Benedryl and then I stopped here and we got robbed. The vicodin and Benedryl both wore off, so now I'm in withdrawal and he's hurting pretty bad. Can we have drugs now?"

Chase shook his head and tossed them the bottle. "Fine. If you don't want to tell me what really happened, you don't have to. You could at least make up a believable story. And I want my iPod back!"


	23. Epilogue

Note: Well, it's finally over! I want to thank all my loyal readers you guy and you reviews shaped the story. I hope the ending lived up to your expectations. Please review, it the only way I can get better!

Wilson was finally released by the orthopedics department, after over two hours. They had to take x-rays from every angle, move his arm in every direction possible and a few he thought might have been impossible. He felt like he was being tortured for information. And he would have gladly told them anything, given up any intelligence on PPTH, The oncology department, Cuddy, even his father to make them stop, but he knew they had to do their job. He just wished they would give him something for the pain. Knowing objectively that they had to know what hurt to know what was damaged, but knowing didn't help. He was finally able to take a full breath when they pronounced that the dislocation had been fixed cleanly, and it would just be sore for a while. Through gritted teeth, he told them that if this was their idea of being sore, he didn't want to think about their definition of agonizing. They grinned patronizingly, and he found himself thinking that if one of them ever got cancer…

House had been with him in the beginning, but Cuddy's assistant had come to get him about twenty minutes ago. House had refused, but the young man had told them that she had threatened to make him House's personal assistant if he came back alone. House still resisted, insisting that he wasn't leaving Wilson, but finally, Wilson told him to go. Told him that he would be fine, and he would meet him in Cuddy's office. Internally, he just didn't want House to have to watch them hurt him anymore.

The pain meds they finally gave him were starting to take effect as he made his way to Cuddy's office, clutching his arm to his chest. He was about to go in, when he heard Cuddy shouting. Wincing, he listened for a moment.

"You were supposed to be helping him! I put a doctor on the edge of burn-out in your care for a week, and he comes back looking like a victim of gang warfare!"

House's voice was quiet, serious. And the words blew Wilson's mind. "I'm sorry. I tried, but I guess not hard enough."

"Do you know how bad he's hurt?" Cuddy demanded. "Four fractured ribs, one broken in two places. The slightest jar could have caused it to break loose. It could have killed him! His eye socket is fractured, and he is severely dehydrated. The wound on his leg is infected. Did you really sedate him with Benedryl? And put his shoulder back in place without any pain medicine?" House didn't reply to this, and Wilson felt anger building up inside him. She had no right to make House feel like this was all his fault! She continued, though in a softer tone. "What really happened? Chase said you two were trying to sell some story about underage girls and being in jail, and hypoglycemia, and waitresses! You may take pride in your reputation as completely insane, but James Wilson has a reputation of his own. He is a responsible, kind, sane person with the exception of having you as his best friend. Even without you, he is a wonderful man, a great doctor. Putting up with you makes him a saint!"

"You're right," House said. "We rented two four-wheelers. I was going too fast, and he was trying to catch up, and he crashed. He didn't want to go to the hospital, so I tried to take him home."

There was silence on the other side for a moment. Finally Cuddy spoke. "Go be with him. And for God's sake, try not to get him hurt again. And take him home. Look after him until he is better. And when he is, you might as well just move your office to the clinic, because you may never see the outside of it again!"

He stepped back quickly as the door opened, and House came out. He tried to hide the guilt etched onto his face when he saw his friend. House smirked at him. Standing there dressed in scrub pants and a hospital gown, he looked pitiful, and House knew whatever punishment Cuddy dealt out wasn't enough for letting the younger man get hurt so badly. He couldn't say that to Wilson though. So he winked at him and said, "It was totally worth it."

Wilson smiled back at him, and House took his arm to lead him back to his room. Wilson pulled back, though. "Go on. I'll meet you there."

House looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "Meet you there."

When House was around the corner, he barged into Cuddy's office. Her eyes widened in surprise. "What are you doing in here? You should be lying down!"

He smiled his best boy-wonder smile and tried his best to look like Saint Jimmy. "Just wanted to check in."

She smiled warmly. "How are you feeling?"

"Good now. Morphine will do that for you."

Shaking her head, she said. "I knew House was a bad influence on you."

Ignoring that, he smiled again. "Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for giving me the time off. And I wanted to show you my tattoo." He turned around, pulling his gown to the side, savoring the shock on her face and the way her eyes were as wide as dinner-plates as she stared across the desk at Princeton-Plainsborough Teaching Hospital's very own fallen saint.


	24. Chapter 24

A/N: I was reading back through this, and decided I just had to do more. I haven't decided if I'm going to do a sequel, or just continue it. Let me know what you think, or if I should just leave well enough alone. Anyway, please review!

House had just finished up with the most difficult case he had worked on in a long time when he flopped in his desk chair, exhausted. He perked up slightly when he saw the new email in his inbox. Daniel Forrester. Nice!

He had kept in pretty close contact with the two boys since their escapades in Southern Kentucky, emailing them at least once a week. These two kids had some great stories that even House couldn't top, and twice, Joey had sent him a case of Napalm. Great kids. Even better bootleggers.

He kicked back in his seat, prepared to read about another of Joey's paramedic adventures, or Daniel's latest raid in a meth lab, or Mama Forrester chasing a stray possum around the kitchen with a broom. However, what he read promised much more entertainment than a few stories.

The grin on his face grew wider by the minute, and he quickly typed a reply. When it was sent, he picked up his cane and limped over to Wilson's office. "Jimmy! You won't believe it! Guess what?"

"You got it on reliable information that Cameron used to be a man?"

House chuckled. "Nope. But that would make for a good story too. Guess again."

"Kentucky finally got a decent basketball coach, and college basketball is going to be interesting again?" Wilson tried.

House paused. "No comment on that one. I'll answer you in a year or so. Right state, though. Try again."

"You heard from Daniel and Joey?"

"Even better. Daniel and Joey are coming to visit!"

Wilson's face broke into a grin matching House's. "No way!"

House nodded, plopping down in the chair opposite to the desk. "Yup. They'll be here in a week. They're coming on vacation, and want us 'city boys' to show them a good time. You up for a little rematch of our trip to Kentucky?"

Wilson groaned theatrically. "The part where we got beat up by the cops –and I still can't believe you didn't tell me you got zapped with a taser in the shower!- or the part where we got chased out of a teenager's bedroom window by a crazy dad with a gun?"

House shrugged. "All of the above?"

Wilson closed his eyes, but he couldn't help but smile. Showing those two country boys around the city was going to be interesting. House suddenly seemed even more like an adolescent when they had been around them, or when he was talking about the frequent emails he got. This would definitely be fun.

His eyes popped open quickly. Wait a second…House…the two redneck kids…here…he winced. New Jersey may not be there by the end of next week. At the very least, Princeton was in serious trouble!


End file.
